


You Don't Know Me (Like You Used To)

by dracoismytrashson (JGogoboots)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Casual Sex, Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson Friendship, Draco Malfoy in the Muggle World, Drunken Flirting, Friends With Benefits, H/D Sex Fair 2020, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Heavy Drinking, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Minor Pansy Parkinson/Blaise Zabini, POV First Person, Post-Hogwarts, Queer Culture, Sectumsempra Scars (Harry Potter), Switching, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-22
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:22:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 33,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26258602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JGogoboots/pseuds/dracoismytrashson
Summary: "Buy me a drink as compensation for maiming me?" he asks."And why the hell would I do that?" It’s a perfectly valid question. A drink invitation from Harry Potter is about as likely of a scenario as me streaking down Piccadilly in broad daylight. Consider me completely thrown off.Sometimes it only takes a week to change everything. The story of how twenty-five-year-old Draco Malfoy hit one Harry Potter with a door and knocked both of their lives into somewhere entirely new.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 114
Kudos: 395
Collections: 2020 Harry/Draco Sex Fair





	1. A Chance Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> For Prompt [#65](https://docs.google.com/document/d/12_5f6f0xUXhqtWfMlhXRyA8kDC3KGShN3oa_IOD12DY/edit#).
> 
> Thank you so much to E for beta-ing this! Your guidance is invaluable. :)
> 
> This is a story about what happens when you get a few years of distance from your trauma, but it still pops its ugly head up from time to time. Why no... it's definitely not a little autobiographical... why do you ask? :P
> 
> I realized I never expanded my notes after the fest reveals, and I want to explain some things here about my own experience with alcohol abuse and how it factored into my portrayal of it in this fic. I'll reserve it for the notes at the bottom of this chapter though so I don't gunk up the top with info. :)
> 
> Dear prompter: I know this ended up being quite a bit more than just "friends with benefits figuring it out," but I hope you like it all the same!

I’m late.   
  
I’m weaving through Diagon Alley like a Billywig in flight, ignoring anyone who grunts their displeasure as I jostle them with a stray elbow.   
  
My fucks, always in short supply to begin with, have been depleted (in both senses of the word) over the course of twelve sleep-deprived hours. I woke up with Andy or Alex (couldn’t recall his name in the blinding light of hungover morning) curled into my side, drooling like an ill-mannered lout who’d never had a one-night stand before. Apparently, I fell into drunken sleep too fast to tell him to shove off and—   
  
“Watch where you’re going, young man!” The scowling witch who shouts those words looks about twice the age Dumbledore was when I was a first year.   
  
“Sorry!” I flash her my most vibrant, charming, toothpaste-commercial smile, but apparently she’s immune to its power. Her frown only intensifies, twisting into something straight out of a nightmare-inducing children’s book. You know the kind. Always some hag in a cottage who has an immutable craving for the spleens of ten year olds. Giving witches a bad name, all for the sake of getting Muggle children to eat their broccoli or whatever. 

I don’t have time to waste on this, so I break into a spirited jog, checking my mobile for the time and swearing when I realize it’s even later than I thought.  
  
Due to this morning’s mishap and the headache that quart of Jameson left me with, I still haven’t made it to Twilfitt and Tattings to pick up Pansy’s order. By the time Donald Busby runs his withered finger down the list of orders, his thick spectacles slipping down his bony nose, it’ll be half past ten, and I’ll still be standing in that infernal shop as I try not to lose my temper. I push the door open, and there’s a resounding crack as it smacks against—   
  
“Ow!”  
  
Sweet.  
  
Merlin’s.  
  
Tits.  
  
In the name of Salazar Slytherin’s saggy balls, _why_ is—   
  
“Draco Malfoy, as I live and breathe. You look… _different_ ,” Harry Potter says with a wince, his eyes squeezing shut as he rubs the welt forming on his gorgeous forehead. A welt _I_ put there when I overzealously threw the door open.  
  
“Uhhh, yeah I—look, I’m sorry about the door, but I really don’t have time to—” To deal with the way my cock still twitches at the sight of Harry bloody Potter, like my unrequited crush is bubbling out of dormancy. He’s standing before me, seven years older and somehow seven years hotter, while I’m a second from vomiting up bile and whiskey. 

Merlin, I need a breakfast sandwich. 

Preferably with bacon and so much cheese, you can see the grease forming on top when you press the bread down into it. And hot sauce. Enough bloody hot sauce for my stomach to groan at me with intense regret four hours later. I trade long term health for instant gratification a lot. It’s a bad behavior I’m working on rectifying. Sort of.  
  
“Yeah, I can see that. You about took my bloody head off. Do you have time later? Buy me a drink as compensation for maiming me?” he asks.

“And why the hell would I do that?” It’s a perfectly valid question. A drink invitation from Harry Potter is about as likely of a scenario as me streaking down Piccadilly in broad daylight. Consider me completely thrown off.

“It’s the least you could do. Or do you have a full day of whacking unsuspecting people with doors ahead of you?” He grins, and his hair is shiny and lush and full like he’s about to pose on a snowy mountaintop for a ski resort brochure and it’s all so bloody unfair. If I weren’t already nauseated, I would be now.   
  
“Very funny.”   
  
“Well?”   
  
“Uhhh.” Merlin, Draco, use your words. “I’m free after six. Why?” I ask again because it’s a question that bears repeating.   
  
“I’m not in town for long. Could use a distraction,” he answers. A distraction from what, exactly? “Curious what else is different about you.” With an altogether unexpectedly salacious smile, his searing gaze sweeps up and down my body. Am I imagining this? Surely, I am.   
  
_Well._

This day has taken several turns, some of which are not entirely unwelcome. I don’t know what alternate universe I’ve stumbled into, but maybe I should reserve my judgment before I completely dismiss its merits.   
  
“If you insist.” What?! Am?! I?! Agreeing to?!?!   
  
“Eight o’clock? Meet me outside the Leaky?”   
  
I tilt my head curiously, but I don’t have time for questions. This mystery will have to remain unsolved until tonight.   
  
“See you at eight, Potter.”   
  
As he leaves, he tosses me a smile that definitely spells trouble. I stand inside the shop, gobsmacked and slack-jawed, for so long that Donald Busby, that cranky old codger, clears his throat and none-too-gently reminds me that he doesn’t have all day for me to remember why I’m there.

  
  


***   
  


“I hate you.” Navigating the hubbub of King’s Cross is obnoxious at the best of times, but hungover, with a mobile wedged between my shoulder and ear, Pansy’s garment bag draped over my arm? Forget about it. I should have Apparated somewhere else, but it’s one of the easiest places to do it. The commotion hides you well, and it’s a good central location in the city. That said, the noise is like a circus mated with an aeroplane taxiing the runway. I’d rather have a tooth pulled with no anesthetic, old school Muggle dentistry before they invented nitrous oxide. That would probably hurt less than the throb of my head as I bolt for the doors, walking as quickly as my jelly legs will allow. 

“Well, hello to you too, darling. Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? Or should I say the wrong side of the man? Your standards really do have a way of going down the pan when whiskey enters the equation. Actually, it’s more like they just dissolve completely. Along with your pants.” As Pansy’s voice filters in over the phone, I can practically hear the conceited flip of her black bob, the way she’s holding out a well-manicured hand and pretending to examine her nails, calculated boredom in her eyes and pursed lips.

“Oh, fuck off, Pans! We can’t all be blessed by a perfect monogamous pureblood union with our high school sweetheart.”

“You know, your sarcasm only works if the thing you’re throwing in my face is actually something to be ashamed of. I _am_ blessed, and you know it, although I’d hardly call us high school sweethearts considering how long it took us to get our shit together. Now… did you get it or not, Mr. Cockswain Transom?”

“What the fuck did you just call me?!” I’m still bouncing through the crowd with an unwieldy garment bag over my arm, and it’s not any smoother of a journey than it was on the way there.

“Oh Merlin, you don’t remember? You really _were_ pissed last night… It was what you kept demanding everyone call you. You were going on and on about how you should’ve been an Upper East Side old money twink in boating shoes and cable knit sweaters. You started making up pretentious New England names, and that was your favorite.”

“You can’t deny that I’m absolutely hilarious.” Cockswain Transom! If you’re going to make a fake old money name for an East Coaster, you can’t do much better than actual boating terminology. I smile a bit smugly, but any triumph I feel goes away as soon as she says— 

“Don’t worry. I made sure to take ample video footage of every moment of _hilarity._ The alcohol might have wiped it from your memory, but I preserved it for posterity.”

“You bloody bint. Did I mention that I hate you?”

“You did, but I’m pretty sure your massive headache is not my fault. I left around midnight, like any responsible adult. You have no one to blame but yourself.”

“That’s not the source of my hatred.” I step through the doors and am finally, thankfully, back in the sooty Muggle London air. It might have been a short trip, but still, I don’t step into wizarding territory if I can avoid it. I’ll do it for Pansy. And apparently for Harry fucking Potter later tonight. 

Fuck. 

“Then what, pray tell, is bothering you, love?”

“You didn’t tell me he was in town! You’re supposed to be my eyes and ears on all things wizard, and I’d say letting me know when my childhood nemesis is back to torture me with the sight of his—” I almost say “perfect emerald eyes” but stop myself just in time. “I’d say this qualifies as need to know information!”

“Nemesis? Who are you referring to? You had an awful lot of enemies in school, Draco. I can’t be expected to keep track of all of them.” 

That arsehole. Sometimes I really question why we’re still friends. Then I remember that we’re united in being the most infuriatingly stubborn people on this planet. Birds of a feather and all that. We also hate all the same people, which is mandatory bonding material for lasting friendships.

“Pansy! I really don’t have time for this. You know who I mean.” I head north on King’s Boulevard, which is a bit out of my way, but King’s Cross is a tourist nightmare. You’re boxed in on three sides by Starbucks and Pret A Manger, loads of breeders (Pansy tells me not to say this, but I kindly tell her to fuck off) with sticky-fingered children in tow, snapping pictures and noshing on fried food. I want to leg it as far away from the capitalist epicenter as possible, even if it means an extra twenty minutes of walking. 

_“You_ don’t have time?! Darling, I am up to my tits in wedding errands. I’m going to have to find a Time-Turner to get it all done. I am beyond busy, which is why I entrusted my best friend to pick up my wedding dress. _Please_ don’t tell me you’ve botched it.”

“I haven’t botched it! I have it right here!” I lift the garment bag up as though brandishing the proof in front of her icy, narrowed eyes (and yes, I’m fully aware of how futile this gesture is, considering we’re on the phone) and almost drop the thing over the side of the bridge and down into the canal. A teenager walking along the bridge stops to laugh at me, clapping as if to say _“good show, you poor bastard.”_ I flip him two fingers because I am not above fighting with children, especially when I’m so hungover, I could die. He flips his own comically skinny fingers back at me. “You’re changing the subject! Again! Why didn’t you tell me I might run into him, with his fucking hair and those _eyes?!”_

“Who has hair and eyes, darling? You really ought to stop drinking so much or you’ll only have two brain cells left to rub together.”

“HARRY POTTER!” I shout it so loud that about ten people on the bridge turn to look at me, and I’m left blushing in the noon-day sun like I’ve shown up to potions class completely naked.

“Oh! You saw Harry Potter in Diagon Alley?!”

“Yes! That’s what I’m trying to tell you! And he… asked me out? I think? I don’t know… I’m meeting him at the Leaky at eight.”

“Holy shit, Draco! Looks like you’re the one holding out on me. This is the gossip of the decade. I honestly had no idea he was back. He’s been traipsing around Europe for years, fucking and taking mushrooms on sheep farms and—”

“Yes, I’m well aware of his exploits. The papers do a bloody good job of making his every fart front page news.”

Pansy laughs, and it’s the sort of cruel laugh that’s inevitably followed by an incisive dig at me.

“How could I forget? You keep tabs on him like a serial killer. There’s definitely a hidden room in your flat with a shrine made out of newspaper clippings. Is it in the shape of his head? Did you get the scar and the messy hair right?”

“I do not keep tabs on him!” I absolutely do, but in my defense, it’s hard not to be glued to the Spiral of the Saviour. Every year of Harry’s life is more adventurous than the previous one. You would think the height of excitement in the Harry Potter saga would be the whole bit where he was in mortal danger for the majority of his adolescence, but alas, the infuriating bugger manages to still be noteworthy in a post-war world. He’s having the time of his life, and while I suppose he’s earned it, it still sticks a pin in my lungs to see the man gallivanting about the globe like some celebutante gunning for Page Six. It’s also just… weird, isn’t it? It’s not like him. He’s insufferably noble; he’s a professional martyr; he’s the arbiter of all things saccharine and wholesome; he’s—

“Save the denial for your therapist, Draco. Let’s get back to the part where you’re meeting _Harry fucking Potter_ for drinks tonight?!”

“Oh yeah… that…” I clutch my stomach as a wave of nausea overtakes me, and I almost miss the rubbish bin as I grip the edge and empty the alcohol-soaked contents of my stomach. 

Great. 

Twenty-five and vomiting in public in broad daylight. In full purview of parents flashing me horrified looks as they cover their childrens’ eyes and steer them away from the bad, bad man in the leather jacket hunched over a rubbish bin, expelling his poor judgment and what was left of his dignity. I might as well be a homeless panhandler.

Mother would be so very proud.

“Don’t you dare tell me you got _any_ of that on. My. Wedding. Dress.”

“Safe,” I groan, holding up the garment bag in a weak show of victory. I tucked it behind my back as soon as I felt the telltale sign of water rushing up my throat. “Not a drop on your precious dress, which is in a damn _bag_ anyway, Pans!” 

“Get your shit together, Draco. And by the grace of Merlin, do it before eight. You’ve embarrassed yourself in front of Harry enough to last a lifetime. Try to save face for once, yeah?”

Have I mentioned how much I really and truly hate her?

  
  


***

  
  


My knees are jiggling so relentlessly that I eventually bump the table (hazard of being tall, not that I’m bragging) and nearly knock my pint over.

Excellent start. 

Really the picture of refinement and composure I’d hoped for. At least I’ve showered and eaten and taken a double dose of hangover potion. My hair is immaculately coiffed, I smell nice, and these jeans do my arse plenty of favors. Hopefully the fastidious attention paid to the external is successfully disguising the jittery internal.

It doesn’t help that we’re in wizarding territory. Everyone is staring at me like they’ve never seen a man in Muggle clothes before. Or maybe it’s because I’m a _Malfoy._ Reputations last several lifetimes here. I guess they do in the Muggle world too, but it’s more… the wizarding world is insular. Cult-like. You can’t take two steps without your arse backing into your friend’s sister’s boyfriend or an old teacher or whoever else you want to avoid. It’s basically a small-town countryside nightmare, an atmosphere that tends to breed gossip like mosquitoes in stagnant water. 

Or maybe they can smell the intense _eau de homosexuel_ wafting off me? If the way I can pick up a man with only the slightest nod is any indication, I give off— 

“Sorry I’m late.” Harry slides into the booth on the opposite side of me, shucking off his jean jacket, and I try not to stare at those tanned biceps flexing underneath the sleeves of a green t-shirt that’s two shades darker than his eyes. “You’d think I’d get better about that eventually, but it doesn’t seem to matter what I do. I can get everything in order and set fifty alarms, and still I’ll be running out the door with thirty seconds to spare, sprinting down the sidewalk and looking a right mess when I get wherever I’m going. Hermione always says I’m on ‘Harry time,’ and you know, I don’t think it’s like a nice oh-that’s-our-Harry comment? I think she really, really hates it.” 

He smiles broadly, and I think a person could be blinded by the charm of it. It’s cute to see him making a rambling, flustered apology. Makes me a bit less nervous.

“Well, she’s got quite the stick up her arse about those things so I wouldn’t say it’s totally your fault,” I say, immediately regretting it. “Sorry! That came out too harsh. I didn’t mean anything by it. She’s just always been more conscientious than the rest of us. That’s all.”

“No worries. I’ll just make sure to tell her that Draco Malfoy said she has a stick up her arse.”

“Please don’t. I like my head attached to my body, thank you very much.”

He laughs and orders a pint from the waitress who swings by our table. When I ordered, she grimaced like the sight of me was about as pleasant as smelling a swamp full of trolls, but she’s beaming and blushing at Harry like she can’t quite believe her luck. It’s supremely irritating that people still fawn over him like this, but he looks charmingly bashful about it. This is the kind of thing that’s made it hard to keep hating him. He’s so maddeningly humble about all the attention; it never turned him into the entitled monster it surely would’ve made me.

“So… what have you been up to, Draco? Other than looking like the forgotten member of The Strokes?”

“Fuck you, Potter! _You_ asked _me_ here, remember?” I default to defense because it’s better than actually answering that question. 

What have I done, you ask? 

Not a blessed thing. 

Well, that’s not entirely true. I did prescribed things. Take this, do that, see this Healer, see that doctor, mark a great bit messy X with your quill on this box of socially predetermined atonement measures. And make sure to photograph it! Make a big show of it for the papers! Honestly, the PR spin of post-war life might have been more of a surreal nightmare than the war itself. At least war doesn’t hide its ugliness. It knows what it is and makes no apologies for it. It doesn’t wipe the soot from its cheek and paint it over with £50 blush and an endorsement deal. There was such a fuss over cosmetic measures of change designed to make people forget about the need for _real_ change. People tripping over their arses to do damage control where reputations and image were concerned. Look at this sparkling smile of Draco Malfoy in the yard of a home for those less fortunate planting trees and bridging gaps! 

I’m not saying none of it did me any good. Quite the contrary. I’d still be a self-important twat without that dirt (both proverbial and very real) under my fingernails. But that Muggle saying about how the more you read, the more you know? Total bollocks. The more you read, the _less_ you know because the immensely messy truth of the universe, tangled like a box of forgotten Christmas lights in the bottom of the basement, reveals itself. The only _more_ you know is how much more we are utterly fucked than you ever previously imagined. And the more I uncovered about the wizarding world’s faults, the post-war scrambling efforts shining big, bold halogen lights on all the roaches under the floorboards, the more it seemed hopeless that the old stains could ever be washed away with a fresh coat of paint and some border trim. Burn it all down and salt the bloody earth, if you ask me. 

But no... I’m not cynical. Not one bit.

“Yes, and I think I made it clear this morning that I _like_ the way you look. Anyway, you dodged my question,” Harry points out.

Perceptive little arsehole. He has a reputation for being a bit thick, but it’s not true. He might not have the head for figures or the subtle intuition needed for potions, but he has a head for people. It's arguably both his most endearing and most vexing trait.

I clear my throat and fiddle with my pint glass. I wouldn’t have normally ordered ale, but everything else in this infernal wizarding pub has a name like Bumbling Brambleberry’s Bubbling Brew and contains ingredients even more ridiculous than its name. Funny how these inconsequential things, things I was completely accustomed to for years, now make me want to bang my head against the wall. Have you ever noticed how utterly ridiculous the wizarding world is? Now that I’ve left, it’s all I notice.

“I’ve uh… well, I own a Muggle bar.” It’s true, and it’s the least complicated thing to talk about in the long list of Things Draco Malfoy Has Done Since the War.

“A bar not a pub?” If he doesn’t stop with that cheeky smile, I’m going to revert to sixth year and let my fist collide with his perfect jawline. Or I’m going to cover it with kisses. Either result won’t end well for us, I’m sure.

“Yes, a _bar._ It’s in—”

“Camden.”

I can feel my face scrunching into a scowl (I have a thing about being interrupted and also a thing about people who ask questions they already know the answer to), but then he blushes and bites his lip and I’m too busy feeling warm and floaty to do anything other than go kitten-soft.

“I—er—” He pushes unruly bangs off his forehead and smiles apologetically. “Blaise might have told me a little bit. And I—er—might have asked from time to time.”

“Oh…” He _asked_ about me. Harry bloody Potter has been _asking_ about me. I will wring Blaise’s neck for omitting these very important details later. “Well… um…” USE YOUR WORDS, DRACO. “What about you? What brings you back to London? Thought all that backpacking through Ireland and skydiving over the Great Barrier Reef was too thrilling to ever beckon you back here.”

Good. Turn it back to him. 

Why is he frowning like that? He looks confused? It’s not that hard of a question, Harry. I thought I was starting with softballs.

“Well, I’m here for the wedding, of course.”

Unfortunately, I am mid-swallow, and ale spurts out of my mouth in a very messy, undignified incident that I will now be replaying in mortifying detail every single night as I lie in bed unable to sleep. Fuck. This. Day.

“Blaise didn’t tell you,” Harry says with a shake of his head. “Maybe he was just respecting my privacy? Once we got closer, I sort of told him not to slip too many details to people back home, but I thought he’d at least let you know about me coming to the wedding.”

“You might be right, but I’d put my money on Pansy for this one. It has her particular brand of ‘I like to torture others for my own amusement’ stamped all over it. Merlin, they really shouldn’t be getting married. Can you imagine how unstoppable their meddling powers will be? They could bring down entire empires before breakfast.”

Well, now I’m definitely wringing his neck. Both of their necks. Together. One in each hand.

“You’d know better than me. I haven’t really talked to her much since school. Or anyone, really… sort of a fluke that Blaise and I ran into each other in the Highlands and kept in touch…” His eyes go dark for a second, but it’s only a passing flicker. He looks around the pub and then back at me. “Hey, let’s go to your bar, yeah? I shouldn’t have picked this place, but I just don’t know London all that well anymore. So I couldn’t think of anything to suggest, you know? But honestly, fuck meeting in the wizarding world. It was a bad idea.”

“I’ll drink to that.” We clink glasses and down the rest of our pints. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Harry Potter. In my bar. Getting drunk with me. Merlin, help us all.

  
  


***

  
  


“Hey, at least you made it into the rubbish bin! Gotta celebrate the small things,” he laughs as we clink our shot glasses together, knocking the vodka back with barely a wince. We’re a few drinks deep now. It got a little awkward on the way over. A lot of hemming and hawing. Both of us accidentally slipping into the puddles of our past and stepping back out again, trying to shake the mud from our boots for a fresh start. 

By the time we got to the bar, we applied the logic of any twentysomething with an arseload of past trauma and bad coping mechanisms: close the tense distance with every alcoholic beverage within reach. Which is, you know, kind of a lot since I own a bar?

“True. Thank you for putting a positive spin on me vomiting in public before noon. I didn’t think that was possible. Merlin, you can really drink, can’t you?” He’s kept up with me, and that’s no easy feat. Pansy would say my tolerance isn’t something to be proud of, all the while holding a martini in one hand, the utter hypocrite.

“Yeah…” He laughs, but it fades into an uncertain expression, his posture coiled like he’s bracing for a chastising. Someone must have scolded him for his drinking in the past, and my Galleons are on Miss Manners Granger. But he shakes out of it quickly, changing the subject. “This place is amazing, Draco! It’s like… the halfway point between pretentious and gritty. It just feels… comfortable, you know?”

“I think there was a compliment somewhere in there.”

“There was! Come on, you know what I mean. On one hand, you have dives where your feet stick to the floor and the loo hasn’t been cleaned since they opened, and on the other hand, you have those places where the drinks cost more than a steak dinner and everyone looks like Kate Moss. This isn’t either of those,” he says, gesturing around the brightly lit room. 

It’s eleven on a Friday night so the place is full up. There are cozy little nooks in every corner of the room, expansive plush red booths and paper lanterns strung all along the ceiling. I went with muted reds and warm, buttery yellows and oranges with gold stenciling along the border. The bar we’re sitting at is a deep, rich mahogany that pairs quite well with the color scheme. There’s a shiny pressed tin ceiling, and a small stage at the back of the room for drag nights, karaoke, anything we fancy doing. Pansy thought I was going to make the whole place look like “a fire engine and the fire it’s racing to put out,” but once it was done, she couldn’t stop gushing about how beautiful it was. She even apologized for having doubted me in the first place, a rarity whose memory I will be shoving in my back pocket for a rainy day.

“I know exactly what you mean.” He’s hit the nail on the head; that was the impetus for me opening this place. I wanted somewhere classy but… homey? A place I could go without elbowing through sweaty bodies on a dance floor or wondering if I’d contracted a rare illness from touching the urinal. In many ways, I’ve aimlessly mucked about my twenties, reveling in hedonistic pursuits that make my mother’s eye twitch (and fuck it, I’d say I’ve earned a bit of mindless, numbing pleasure), but this bar is one thing I’ve poured a lot of heart into. I’m proud of it above all else, and I’d rather not think about how good it feels to have Harry Potter validate that. 

“I didn’t know you were coming in tonight!” Ian waltzes over, bar towel slung over his shoulder, sleeves of a crisp, blue button-down rolled up to the elbows, and leans on the bar. “Who’s this?”

“Harry, meet Ian. Ian, Harry. We went to school together, and I think that’s about all I can say.”

Harry laughs and shakes Ian’s outstretched hand across the bar. Ian’s eyes flick to mine to deliver the quickest _“and are you going to fuck him tonight?”_ covert glance he can manage. I give him a look that says _“you’re barmy,”_ but then I realize that, to Ian, it just looks like I’m sitting with a very handsome, shaggable man with whom I have no previous baggage. 

That’s when it occurs to me that we don’t just _look_ like that; we’re _acting_ like that too. Other than a few stuttering mishaps and strained silences, we haven’t really done anything to indicate our former enemy status. We’ve just… glossed over it as though it was a bit of nasty business we’d rather forget. Sweep the dust bunnies under the rug instead of dumping them in the bin.

“Ian helped me open this place. I have great taste, but I didn’t exactly know how to go about the practical aspects. I would have been lost under a pile of bills and pending permits if he hadn’t jumped at the chance to save me.” It’s true. I owe that and much more to Ian. He helped a baby gay in the big bad Muggle world figure out how the fuck to be a person and run a business all at once. He’s a few years older than me and several decades wiser. 

“‘Jumped’ is a strong word. It’s more like I couldn’t stomach the sight of this spoiled rich boy fumbling to do real life adult tasks. It was truly painful to watch. Pity was a big motivator.” Ian smiles with crossed arms, and Harry laughs in a manner that is far too comfortable for my liking.

“Fuck you for saying that,” I point to Ian, “and fuck you for laughing at it,” and then to Harry. “Is Shay around to have a go at me too or am I safe?” 

Shay came on after Ian, but she’s equally vital to keeping me sane and keeping this bar afloat. She’s like my Pansy on the Muggle side of life, except with softer edges, a more colorful, vintage-inspired wardrobe, and a lot more queerness. 

“You’re safe for now. She left a couple hours ago.” He leans in to whisper in my ear, and I pray that the din of the bar is enough to hide the words from Harry. “But don’t think I won’t be telling her about the tasty snack of a green-eyed man you came in with. And you _know_ she’ll be asking for details that will make us both squirm. Be glad you only had to see me tonight.” He stands up and nods to Harry. “Nice meeting you, Harry! I’ve got loads to do in the back so I’m off.”

Harry waves to him, and then turns to me with a mischievous grin. God, I want to see that grin stretched around my cock. 

Fuck.

I need to switch to water.

“Sooooo… what did he whisper to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Was it about me?”

“Shut it.”

“It was definitely about me.”

“Yeah, well… a mysterious man from my past shows up, blah blah. My friends are nosy little buggers. Doesn’t hurt that you’re gorgeous either.” Did I mention that I need to switch to water?

“Oh yeah? Is that what you think?” He scoots closer, letting his leg swing over until our thighs are touching. The effect is embarrassingly swift: in no less than two seconds, I’m hot from top to bottom. 

I try to compartmentalize. To conjure images of the least sexy things I can think about. Snape. Flobberworms. Slime. Feet (not trying to kink-shame here, but I cannot stand them in any form. Even “good” feet bother me.) My brain is rapidly scrolling through images like a gargantuan card catalogue of every unattractive thing I’ve ever laid eyes on, but then we start talking about our exes.

We’re drunk and chatting about all the bad dates we’ve had. The hookups where the men had boring or odious personalities. Or maybe they had no manners. Some were so terrible in bed that we just ended up wishing we’d sat in front of the telly with some Indian takeaway instead of going out. I don’t ask if he’s ever woken up next to a man and had to explain why he was shrieking in his sleep. I’m sure he has, but everything is going so well. I don’t want to put a damper on the evening, especially now that we’re talking about why Harry hasn’t settled down with anyone. 

“I don’t know, Draco. I just—I don’t have any interest in it? And it’s hard when your best mates settle down right away. They can’t understand why I wouldn’t want that cozy, safe life in a house with a yard. It’s not like I don’t think _they_ should have it! I’m not judgey about it! They’ve only had eyes for each other since they were kids, you know? It’s sweet, but it’s not for me.” We’ve both reached the point in the night where we’re prattling on without a filter. Neither of us can make our point in less than ten sentences, but since we’re in the soup together, neither of us care. I raptly nod along to his diatribes, interjecting my approval when I feel like it, and he does me the same courtesy. Apparently, we’re similarly stunted when it comes to the subject of romance, a shared emotional dysfunction. It doesn’t surprise me that Mr. and Mrs. “we met when we were eleven and got married right after the war, aren’t we so sickeningly adorable” don’t approve of Harry’s nomadic life. Why do people always act like someone taking a different life path is a condemnation of their own choices? It’s not a crime to want something different. 

“Of course it’s not for you! You spent your entire childhood trying not to fucking die because some psychotic wizard you’d never even really met made it his life quest to take you down. God, do you ever think about it like that? Like, what a petty vendetta it was? Waaaahhh, a baby bested me! I have to prove I’m better than that or I’ll look weak! What even is that?! Grow some bollocks, Voldy.” I sound like such a drunken prat. Not only am I making no sense, I’m also trivializing his suffering. Good show.

Oh wow.

He’s laughing.

I made him laugh.

Oh, and he’s resting his hand on my shoulder as he doubles over with giggles, bringing us even closer, our thighs still pressed together. 

I am hard as fucking granite.

“I never thought about it like that, but you’re right. Oh Merlin,” he wipes tears out of his eyes and catches his breath, his hand falling away from my shoulder. I miss it instantly. I can still feel the heat of it. It’s comforting, like wrapping your hand around a warm mug of tea on a cold winter morning.

“Right?! Bloody stupid show of male bravado. Anyway, I guess I just mean that… you deserve to do whatever you want with your life. You’re only twenty-five. Rushing into marriage and kids after everything you went through? That would have been a fucking disaster.”

“Thank you!” He raises his pint glass, and we toast (we’ve been doing a lot of that?), liquid sloshing down both of our wrists because we’re entering the happy yet clumsy stage of drunkenness. “Like, it’s not that hard to understand, you know? I feel like it’s a perfectly reasonable thing I shouldn’t have to explain so much, but Merlin… everyone has their idea of what my life should look like. That’s why I just had to… go.”

He rotates his glass on the hardwood, the condensation dripping down to make a wet ring on the bar, and the mirth drains from his eyes.

“You did what you had to. You shouldn’t feel guilty about that. It’s hard to stay in a place that’s full of reminders. Especially for you. You wouldn’t have known a moment’s peace.” I cover his hand with mine, and I don’t even do it because I want him—although I very much do—I do it because I feel bad for him. 

I remember all the articles after he left. There were opinions of every shit variety. Some accused him of being a coward, of abandoning the wizarding world when it needed him the most, how he owed everyone his time and energy in the rebuild. Some speculated that all of his power came from the Horcruxes, and he was escaping before anyone could see he was just an average, unremarkable boy wizard. The more level-headed ones wrote about trauma and why separation can do a victim a lot of good. That tabloid leech Rita Skeeter focused on reporting his every sexual partner and pub night, as though she could undo all his virtue by skewering him for normal twentysomething behavior. I don’t even know how people found him, but they always managed to do it. It didn’t really slow down until he got further away, shucking the UK scenery for other parts of the world. Slimy Rita still asked her readers for tips, making a game out of it, the shameless slag. 

“See? We’re getting on just fine. If I’d drudged up all that old shit, we wouldn’t be sitting here like this. I know everything you did after the war; it’d be stupid to pretend that doesn’t count. I mean, Merlin, you live in Muggle London and own a gay bar. You can’t get much further from ‘Hogwarts Draco’ than that.” 

“You’re not wrong. My mother is _really_ excited about it, as you can imagine.” I take a hearty gulp of my drink. That subject always demands liquor.

“Not gonna lie, I’d pay to see Narcissa standing around in here, making a face like,” he screws up his nose and narrows his eyes, and it’s honestly such a good likeness that I nearly do my second spit-take of the night.

“Ugh, Harry… I love her, I really do, but she makes it so hard sometimes. I’m going to have to drag her kicking and screaming into this century.” I would say I can’t believe I’m talking to him about my mother except that this is the sort of drunk I am. It makes sense, I suppose. Isn’t that what drinking does? Unlocks the parts of you that you suppress when you’re sober? I can be tight-lipped and guarded as they come, but booze always lubricates my trust to a dangerous degree. And I’m… drunk more nights than I should be, to be honest. 

“Does she come round at all? Here or your flat or anything?”

“She does.” I don’t elaborate. I just enjoy his wide-eyed shock.

“Oh, come on!” He playfully slaps my arm. “Don’t just leave it at that, you tease!”

“Okay, okay, no need to incite violence. We have lunch once a month, and at some point, I just put my foot down and said, ‘this is my life, it’s going to keep being my life, so 50% of the time, you have to come to _me_ instead of making me trudge into that mausoleum of a mansion.’”

“Good for you! I’m glad you’re okay, the two of you. ‘Cause I mean… well…” he trails off and smiles awkwardly before taking a sip of his beer. I know what he’s trying to avoid. We both do, but we won’t say it.

“Oh, great.” I spot Alex or Adam (I never did figure out which it was) across the room. This day just won’t stop presenting me with unlucky surprises I don’t know how to deal with. At least it gives me an excuse to steer this conversation back to something lighter. We’re both far too drunk to start talking about my father, and I really, really don’t want this night ending in shared tears over all the death and destruction we both witnessed in the war.

“What?” Harry looks over his shoulder and then back to me.

“Oh, it’s just this bloke I slept with last night. I can’t even remember his name, but—”

“Classy, Draco.”

“Oh, sod off! We were literally just talking about how you’ve fucked your way around Europe.” I would like to note that I made an ‘Around the World in 80 Cocks’ joke that made him laugh once again. I hope I remember it in the morning. “What can I say, Harry? I’m a fucking gay disaster. I vomit in front of happy families, and I wake up next to men whose names I can’t remember.”

“I know, but that’s why I like you! Gay Disaster Draco Malfoy is highly relatable.” There’s that smile again. It’s like the damn sun and the world’s cutest kitten mated with a rainbow. I am powerless against it. 

Now he’s looking at me, eyes at half-mast and glinting with conspiratorial want. It’s a look I know very well because I’ve done this flirtatious dance with many men. Were he anyone else, he'd already be under me, moaning my name. But he’s Harry Potter, and I can’t just—can I? 

God, his lips are so full and red. Like rose petals. Like ripe strawberries. I need to taste them. He angles his head toward mine, and his tongue darts out to swipe along his bottom lip. All the signs are there. I’ve done this enough times to know. Some (many) would argue that I’ve done this too many times. I just have to do my part. Lean in the rest of the way and kiss him. Let him kiss me.

So why am I jerking my head back like I’ve been stung by a bee? Harry flushes, his eyes going wide, and then he straightens his spine, sitting up and looking forward instead of at me. I miss the searing heat of his gaze and the hot press of his thigh.

“Sorry, I thought… nevermind,” Harry mutters, and the way he runs his hand through his disheveled hair, all embarrassment and second-guessing, is the sort of thing I would have reveled in, had this happened years ago. I would have dove head-first at the chance to rebuke Harry Potter the way he did to me at eleven years old, but like I said, I’ve discarded all the things I couldn’t carry around anymore. After the war, it felt like a thick network of locked chains were laced over my shoulders and waist, strapped about my thighs and ankles. I worked hard to dismantle them one by one, and now that I have most of the weight lifted, I don’t want to take it back on.

“No no, you… I want to. It’s just… it’s kind of the worst idea? I mean, I know you Gryffindors love to plunge headlong into risks of every kind, but this is us. I just don’t understand how you’re so... unbothered. You haven’t really mentioned anything about… well, anything that happened between us?? You’ve sort of been treating me like we’ve never met. Or at least like you want to start over and ignore everything. Don’t get me wrong. I really appreciate it. It’s the nicest thing anyone could do for me, _especially_ you. But I still…” Oh great, I’m rambling and taking unnecessary pauses. Five Drink Draco is officially here. Still, I do have a point. After all, I’ve made my fair share of idiotic decisions by letting my cock steer the ship—again, some would argue too many times—but this has the potential to be colossal. The Titanic hitting the iceberg and descending into a slow, agonizing sink for hours and hours. 

“Would you rather I hold onto the past? Because everyone defines us by who we were during the war, and that’s just so—don’t you hate that? It’s like who we were before and who we are after doesn’t even matter. People we haven’t even met, people we’ll never meet, are just sitting around right now thinking about you and me and how we were for three years of our lives which is like—microscopic in the grand scheme of things! It’s this tiny, tiny window of time,” Harry says. His thick brows are knitting together, and his eyes are fierce with determination. I get it. I get every single thing he’s saying because I’ve lived it too. “I hate it. I don’t want to do that with you. I saw you in that shop, and I just… I don’t want to act like nothing has changed, and we’re back at Hogwarts. Do you?” 

“No, I just…” I’m just waiting for the catch. I have the distinct sense that there is one, and my instincts are rarely wrong, even when marinated in vodka. Still… he’s sitting there, so pretty and sincere and ready for me, and I’m drunk and starting to relive all the pent-up lust I’ve been carrying around for him. He still possesses that unfair charisma I’ve always envied, and it’s so goddamn nice to be on the receiving end of it for once. It feels like a gift.

I guess I didn’t snip _all_ the chains. Not this one. 

“Why not, Draco? You think I’m fit, I think you’re bloody gorgeous, and we’ve had a good time tonight. We’re not fifteen anymore. Besides, we’re gay men. Supposedly we’re good at this. We’ve certainly had a fair share of practice, between the two of us.” 

“Right, because there’s no drama in the gay community ever. Especially not when it comes to hookups.” Honestly, I love the queer community with all my heart. I love the way it embraced me when I was lost and didn’t know where to turn. I love the way it gave me somewhere to belong for the first time in my wretched life. I even love its snipey in-fighting. But what I don’t love is its incestuousness. As evidenced by Exhibit A (the man with the undetermined A name standing twenty feet away), you can’t throw a ten pence in this bar without hitting a cock I’ve sucked. So yes, problems rise up as much as erections do. You might be thinking _“wouldn’t that be less of a problem if you stopped fucking around so much?_ ” I see your point, and I raise you one glass of _“shut the fuck up, no one asked you.”_

“Well, think of it like this: if it gets weird, you know I’ll be moving on soon. I’m only in town long enough for you to fuck me stupid for a few days straight.”

“Always forward, never straight,” I joke, clicking my tongue and flashing finger guns at him. My perilous level of drunkenness can truly not be overstated.

“That doesn’t even make sense, Draco. A few days forward?!” He’s laughing so hard he can’t breathe again. I could get used to making him laugh like that. 

He starts to say something, but I don’t let him get a word in. I surge forward and kiss those plump lips. He moans softly, and we don’t have those usual fumbling first seconds, trying out positions until our mouths lock and move together. 

We just… sync up, his lips sliding against mine, warm and moist and eager but not _too_ eager. He doesn’t push the pace. He doesn’t demand, but he doesn’t yield either. He matches me. He meets my every cue, his fingers sliding into my hair and his other hand cupping my cheek. 

It’s good. God, it’s so fucking good, I can’t stand it. I’m tingling all over like it’s the first time. Like I’m pressed against the wall at eighteen, a strange, beautiful man standing between my legs for the _very_ first time, fireworks going off behind my closed eyes as I realize with boundless glee that _yes, this is it._ This is what I’ve been missing.

His tongue is teasing against mine in just the way I like. Not forcing its way in but not tentative and meek either. It’s a dance, and he knows all the steps, the rhythm. When to back off and when to rush in. 

I’m so hard, and I want him so fucking bad. It calls to mind too many mortifying things. Being fifteen and rustling under my sheets with silent gasps, trying desperately to think about anything other than this, anything other than him. 

When we separate, the bar is like a background slowly being shaded in by an artist we can’t see. I can tell from the way he’s transfixed, his lovely mouth open and his eyes sparkling, eyes he can’t seem to tear away from mine, that, just like me, he’s forgotten that we were here at all.

We both smile slowly, and he chuckles before leaning in and whispering in my ear, his tongue flicking against the lobe, “We’re gonna go to the bathroom. We’re Apparating to your flat, and you’re gonna fuck me so hard, I’ll feel it when I wake up in the morning. Any questions?” 

I don’t have any.

And I can’t think of a single reason to say no.

  
  


***

  
  


We’re crashing into everything—the railing of the stairs, my coffee table, the posts in the middle of the open loft space—and laughing along the way. I don’t know if it’s just the alcohol coursing through our bodies, eroding all inhibitions (or at least delaying them until morning) and borrowing serotonin from tomorrow, but it’s alarming how easy this is? We’re joking; we’re playful; we’re just rolling with the punches like it’s the breeziest thing in the world. 

We land on my bed with a soft thud, him on top of me, lying between my spread legs. I haven’t drawn the curtains so he’s backlit in the glow of the city, that bright combination of moonlight and streetlamps that’s always a bit more delicate than you think it will be. It’s perfect. Just the right amount of cover. I can see him, but I don’t think he can see more of me than I’d like. And I need that reassurance right now because my desire feels like a tight, confined space riddled with bombs obscured by the softest mounds of dirt. Just one brush in the right direction, and it’s all out in the open. 

He’s kissing my neck and grinding against me, his t-shirt riding up enough for me to see a strip of his lower back. I slide my hand along that patch of skin, slipping lower until his arse is in my palm, and he moans when I squeeze it. He’s a moaner, and I thank Merlin and every other god I can think of for that. We’ve barely begun, and he’s already making sweet, desperate little sounds in my ear as he ruts against me and whispers how much he wants me. 

It occurs to me that maybe I’m dreaming. Maybe someone slipped me some ridiculous potion that puts you under and spins your fantasies into dreams so real you can taste them. What’s happening right now seems impossible on so many levels, but I decide it doesn’t matter. If this is some dream concocted by wizarding manipulation, let me never wake up.

“Tell me what you want,” he rasps, one hand skating down my shirt until he reaches the bulge straining against my jeans.

For the hundredth time that night, I think about being fifteen. I think about wanking off to the image of Harry fucking my mouth, pulling my hair, and telling me what a slut I am for his cock, how it’s all I’m good for. Like hearing that would give me purpose, would walk me through some golden ring of salvation and save me from myself. But I can’t tell him that. Even though he wouldn’t know the genesis of the fantasy, even though it would probably just sound like some random preference culled from years of fucking and figuring out my body, it feels too intimate. Like giving Harry a piece of my brain, letting him walk around and take something for himself.

He kisses my collarbone, and his hand starts creeping up underneath my shirt, exploring my stomach and rising further until— 

“Don’t touch them!” I scramble up the bed, leaving him baffled and kneeling at the bottom. Actually, make that both of us because this was not a reaction I was anticipating in any way. Loads of men have touched my scars. Sometimes it’s a little awkward at first, if the light is too harsh, highlighting every slash in garish detail, but mostly I just shrug it off. Who are they to ask or be put off by them? The men I’m fucking don’t bear any rights to my body. They’re in and out of my life like those tourists in King’s Cross, there for the quick thrill of something new before they go back to their regularly scheduled lives. If they say anything, I just tell them to fuck off, but… I’ve never considered what I’d do if the one person responsible for these scars finally saw them.

“Draco? Are you okay? D-did I do something wrong?”

“No… no… it’s just um…” Bloody hell… I am really not sober enough to roll my damaged body down this hill of anguish. We’ll both end up with splinters in our arses. 

Who am I kidding? Sobriety has nothing to do with it. This would be a hellish task no matter what.

“Do you want me to go?” His voice is soft with concern. He would go right now, no questions asked. Somehow, I just know that, and I know it’s partly because he too would like to be afforded anonymity about the specters of his past, the unexpected flares that happen, mundane occurrences that trigger a devastating flashback in our lacerated psyches. 

“No,” I answer too quickly, earning me a skeptical tilt of his head. I do mean it though. I’m not just grasping at the opportunity of a lifetime, heedless of the dangers, simply because I’m afraid I won’t get another chance. I’m not pretending to be fine, ready to grin and bear it through something I can’t handle either. I’m just inexplicably struck by the notion that I will crumble to bits if he leaves, and although it’s not his responsibility to hold my pieces together, I don’t want to be alone right now. I’m terrified of what will happen when he walks out of that door, the sprawling space of this loft shrunk down to a cage of my own making. “Can I just… keep my shirt on?”

It seems like a decent compromise. Maybe it won’t work, but I want to at least give it a shot.

“Sure! Anything you’re—I want you to be comfortable. Whatever you want, okay?” He hesitantly runs a hand up my thigh, watching my face for a bad reaction, his smile softening from practiced to genuine when he sees me relax into the touch.

I wonder for the umpteenth time why he’s doing this. There have to be thousands of blokes out there gagging for the Saviour’s cock. Actually, I know there are because I’ve seen the tabloid evidence of his exploits. Men far better looking and less flawed than me. I’m punctured through with so many holes, I might as well be a sieve made of human flesh. 

He’s beautiful, and his smile is infectious and placating, like taking one of Pansy’s Xanax. He just has that effect, and I don’t know that I’ve ever quite put that together before? That my attraction has partly been because he soothes me, and I don’t even know why? It’s not like he wasn’t a bit of a chaotic loose cannon in school, but there was always something… _certain_ about him. A conviction. A solid anchoring point at his center than I was lacking and wanted the secret to it. I see it there now, in the way he’s looking at me. 

“Can I go down on you?” 

I nod, but he still looks hesitant, so I say yes, as loudly and with as much steadiness as I can muster. All that steadiness evaporates as he gently eases me down the bed until I’m sitting at the foot, my legs hanging off the edge. He starts to take off my jeans and pants, and the way he keeps glancing up at me every step of the way, cautiously waiting for the signal before he carries on, is making everything fluttery and warm in my chest. It’s too much.

Harry is on his knees on my bedroom floor, his large palms covering my pale thighs as he looks up at me like I’m responsible for granting his every wish, like I’m the one in charge. It’s not at all how I pictured this going, but I’m not complaining and neither is my cock, hard and flushed and so close to his lips, I can’t stop thinking about what they’d look like smeared in my come. I let him wait patiently for another moment (which is all I can manage anyway) before I lean forward until the tip of my cock is touching his lips.

“Lick.” It comes out more commanding than I intended, the word curling in the air like thick smoke that refuses to settle. Harry’s on his knees for me. Might as well play the part.

He looks into my eyes, a flash of something wicked in those green irises as his tongue darts across the leaking head of my cock. It’s so warm, and he takes his time, languid little licks like we have all the time in the world, like we’re not both verging on combustion. Well… maybe he’s not, but I sure as fuck am. My whole body is a throbbing red nerve, and I feel every swipe of his tongue in my stomach, my chest, the tips of my fingers. He gets me good and wet, and I’d sort of forgotten how much I like it like this. There’s a tendency to rush a blowjob. It’s treated like either a) a quick appetizer that’s really just a segue to the main course or b) a quick way to get off and move on. He’s savoring me, bathing the length and sucking the head and dipping down to my balls, making sure I’m slick and built to a boiling point before he finally makes a tight, hot seal with his mouth, taking me in one go like it’s nothing. 

I’m paralyzed at first, my hands hovering in the air like he’ll dissolve if I try to touch him. Finally, he grabs my hand and places it on the back of his head, sparing me a scorching gaze that makes sure I know his meaning. We fall into a rhythm, me thrusting into his mouth and then pulling off to let him bob up and down, my hands combing through his thick, wavy hair.

It doesn’t take long. I come down his throat, my fingers tightening in the hair at the base of his neck. I see fucking stars, and I’m grateful for the firm grip of his hands on my thighs because my legs can’t stop shaking. Even as my orgasm fades, it’s like the sensation is stored in my body, little sparks going off somewhere deep inside me, striking again and again until I think it will never end. I can’t stop whimpering. 

He’s barely pulled off my cock before I’m hauling him up by the shoulders, kissing him like my life depends on it, fumbling with his zipper until we both start laughing at my ungainly hands. When his pants are around his thighs (which are built like a long distance runner’s—dear God, I wish I had the patience to spend about an hour licking and biting those), I start working his cock, swallowing every sweet moan that spills out of those pouty lips.

“Your turn… what do _you_ want, Harry?” 

He chuckles and bites his lip, looking at me like he can’t decide, like all the overwhelming possibilities are scrolling through his mind in an endless slutty slideshow. Has he… thought about this before too? No… couldn’t be. 

“Just this. Just… keep touching me.” He’s breathless and bucking into my hand, and I definitely don’t mind it happening like this. I completely forget this all started with him telling me he wanted me to fuck him until he couldn’t walk. There are a million things I want to do to him, but I’ve waited a long time and urgency is winning out over the more complicated scenarios in my head (both of our heads?) I’m perfectly happy to lie underneath him, his breath hot and moist on my lips, his legs intertwined with mine while I fist his cock. “Bite me,” he gasps with that specific kind of wild desperation unique to those seconds before your whole body unfurls. He exposes his neck, and I take the hint. “Harder.”

I oblige, sinking my teeth in his skin so hard that I worry I’ve gone too far, but he just moans like he’s never felt anything so divine.

“Are you trying to make me hurt you?” I don’t know what makes me ask, but it must have been the right thing because that’s when he comes. 

I’m torn between watching his rapt face, eyes closed, mouth open and panting, and his cock as it jumps in my hand, soiling my shirt and coating my fingers. A brief possessive whim flashes across my mind, and I want to preserve this shirt as it is. Never wash it and just keep it covered in his come… oh shit… I am so fucked. 

Fucked like a ten car pile-up on Piccadilly Circus at rush hour. New crews and cranes and tow trucks will be needed to remedy this twisted-upon-itself level of fucked. 

Harry rolls off me and onto his back, leaning on my bed so casually, like it’s a familiar space he’s occupied many times before. 

I like him like this. Sticky with sweat and come, disheveled and half-clothed in my bed. I open the nightstand, grab my wand and clean him off. He smiles sleepily and hums as he feels the tingle of the charm. The way he’s looking back at me, eyelashes fluttering, cheeks rosy, everything tender and inviting, he may as well be a long time lover waking up next to me, stretching and smiling in the morning light as he slings an arm round my waist. 

I hate it. 

That doesn’t explain why I surge forward, my torso covering his, and kiss him. We’re a mess. Half dressed, buttons and zippers clashing, but his mouth feels like heaven on mine. 

“I like the way you kiss,” he sighs as we break apart, and have I mentioned how utterly fucked I am? Like a fifty-year-old hooker who’s been working Soho since she was old enough to do it. I should be running for the door, but unfortunately this is my flat. I invited him here like the stupid sentimental sod I am. “Most people aren’t good at it. Why is that?” 

“Mmm,” I reply as I slide our lips together again, a hand in that silky mop of hair as my tongue flirts with his. It seems safer not to talk right now. I haven’t the foggiest idea what will come tumbling out of my mouth, but I do have enough sense to know that it’s probably going to be something I’ll regret in the morning. 

“It should be a simple thing, really, shouldn’t it? But people just like… I dunno… it’s hard to find someone that knows how to _read_ you when you’re kissing.” 

“Do you _ever_ shut up?” Good job, Draco. You chose snark over sincerity. Maybe your id isn’t totally steering your bad decisions tonight. 

“No.” He laughs and kisses me until I forget how irrevocably fucked I am.


	2. So You've Just Fucked Your Old Nemesis, Eh? Now What?

I wake up to the ringing of my mobile—has it always been that shrill, and if so, how have I not chucked the blasted thing into the Thames yet?—and the unfortunate reminder that I forgot to close the curtains last night.

“Light… why…” I croak, and Harry groans next to me, slinging a forearm over his eyes. 

Oh. Right. 

I had sex with Harry fucking Potter last night. My stomach starts to roil as I work myself into an anxiety spiral. What did I say to him last night and how much of it is going to come back to bite me in the arse? This is always the worst part: the morning after when the fuzzy recollection of last night taunts you with all the potentially insidious blowback. Really, it should be enough of a motivator to make me stop. Somewhere in the back of my irresponsible twat brain, I know this, and yet… I’m sort of stuck in a loop of “remember why drinking has consequences, vow to abstain, remember two days later that booze is also fun, get drunk… and then remember again why drinking has consequences.” 

For a while, my propensity toward the self-destructive was very conveniently camouflaged by everyone else. It’s normal to get pissed an inordinate amount of the time and make stupid decisions at eighteen, especially when many of your cohorts are in the same traumatized-by-wartime boat that you are. 

But then the gap starts to widen. People grow up and out of their bad coping mechanisms. They start to scatter off to various corners of adulthood, their orderly lives like big, angry arrows pointing toward your dysfunction. 

On second thought, we’ll get back to this later. It’s way too early for me to continue down that steep landslide.

I sift through the pile of clothes at the side of the bed (I’m still naked from the waist down, limp prick flopping about, very graceful indeed, making sure the Malfoy name is still associated with poise and veneration), and I find my mobile underneath my jeans. It must have slipped out of the pocket.

The missed call blinking across the screen is from “Mommy Dearest.” Ian showed me that film one night (he’s always introducing me to what he considers to be “gay camp classics”), and while I definitely wouldn’t say my mother was Faye-Dunaway-as-Joan-Crawford cruel, the opportunity made me laugh too hard not to take it. 

I’m sitting on the edge of the bed looking at my mobile screen when I feel an arm snake around my waist, lips on my neck. I set the thing down on the nightstand and stiffen in his arms. In the extremely harsh sober light of day (did the sun acquire the strength of three suns?? Because I’m pretty sure my eyes are being burned out of their sockets), melting into Harry’s embrace seems like a severely bad idea.

“Well, I guess she finally figured out how to join this century if she’s dialing you, yeah?” Harry chimes in. 

“No, she uses magic to do it.”

“But… wouldn’t it be way easier to just—”

“Don’t even go there, Harry. You’ll drive yourself mad. She’s like one of those people who refuses to drive an automatic car because they got comfortable with the absurd complexities of a stick shift.” I disentangle myself from his arms and go close the curtains, finally blocking out the sun’s infernal rays.

“You’re not going to call her back?” 

What’s it to you, Potter?

“Oh, it’s just her weekly reminder that she wants more for me than this purposeless playboy life and feels guilty for having instilled that rich layabout sense in me.” I get back in bed, sitting with my back against the wall, keeping a safe distance from him. He ignores that social cue completely and sidles right up next to me. He’s shirtless, and I’m having a hard time not staring at the planes of his stomach, the way his muscles flex when he wraps his arms around his knees. 

“Do you think it’s her fault?” My, isn’t he frank for ten in the morning? Especially considering the circumstances. 

“No. I’m twenty-five, Harry. Everything is officially my fault from now on.” It’s a bit pathetic how proud I am for not sniping at him, but considering how we were a decade ago, maybe it’s not that pathetic. I  _ have _ come a long way, even if some areas of my life are still lagging behind like a dead limb.

“Oh, I dunno… I think you can keep blaming your parents for everything until at least thirty? I think that’s when the free pass officially expires.” He smirks at me, his head falling back against the wall.

“Are you taking the piss?”

“Maybe a little.”

It gets quiet, and my heart thumps like a rabbit running from the fox hunt. What in the ever loving fuck am I supposed to— 

“Well, I should be off.” 

THANK MERLIN. 

He bolts out of bed with far too much vim and vigor for someone who drank as much as we did last night, and starts to get dressed. It’s a tragedy to watch those muscles being covered up. I hope his clothes know how lucky they are. Just as I start to think he’s going to fuck off without so much as a perfunctory goodbye, he crawls on the bed toward me, holds my face between his hands, and kisses me slow and deep. I succeed in resisting for about half a second before I hook a finger in his belt loop and pull him on top of me. Merlin, does he ever know what he’s doing with that tongue… 

We go at it for far longer than the standard window of time for a hookup goodbye, and I think it’s entirely my fault. The ways in which I am incredibly fucked start rushing upon me like sprinters across the finish line, and I finally (albeit a bit reluctantly) pry my mouth off his.

“I thought you had to go…” 

“Just giving you incentive to call me later.” He actually winks, the cheeky son-of-a-bitch. Like everything about him, it’s both infuriating and charming. It occurs to me that I’ve been playing this game of “punch or kiss” with Harry sodding Potter for the majority of the years I’ve been on this Earth. How many times have I mentioned how utterly fucked I am? I’ve lost count.

He programs his number into my mobile, kisses me again, and then he’s out the door as smoothly as a summer breeze. 

I pick up the cursed contraption, and after I’ve taken an embarrassingly long moment to bask in the reality of seeing Harry’s name in my contacts, I select a number.

I don’t even let her finish saying “hello” before I direct all my hungover rage and regret toward her. I’m half-aware that it’s unfair, and that I’m mostly yelling at myself, but like any good drunk with impulse control problems, I do it anyway.

“I can’t fucking believe you! Both of you! I knew Blaise had chatted him up a bit on that Scotland trip, but I didn’t know they  _ talked. _ Regularly! How could you fucking  _ lie _ to me about this?!”

“Good morning to you too, Draco…” Pansy groggily replies.

“Fuck you! I don’t like to pull a see you next Tuesday, but this is—”

“I’m going to stop you right there before you say anything that will get you disinvited from the wedding.”

“Are you serious right now?” Like the wedding is what matters at this moment. We’ve talked of nothing else for months, and I am very thoroughly over it. She’s reached the limit of excusable bridal conceit. I open my dresser drawer and put on a new pair of briefs because I’m feeling pretty stupid about having this conversation while I stand around naked. (I shucked off the come-stained shirt a while ago, shuddering as I remembered the creepy stalker instinct I had about it last night.)

“Yes, I’m serious, Draco. Did you get pissed last night?”

“What?! Why are you asking me—”

“Just. Answer. Me.”

“Yes, I got fucking drunk, Pans. What’s it to you, mum?”

“What’s it to me? I’ll tell you, Draco. I’m tired of seeing you put off growing up. You’re the bloke at the end of the night lingering around the party when everyone’s gone home. And if you can’t figure out what it’s doing to you, I don’t know what to tell you anymore! I’ve tried to say it in as many different ways as I can, but it doesn’t get through. When was the last time you went on a second date? Hell, when was the last time you didn’t wake up with a headache and a foul fucking mood? Aren’t you tired of it?!”

“How dare you fucking judge me, Pans! So I like to have a bloody good time! I don’t need your permission, and by the way, being in a relationship doesn’t fix a person. Maybe I’m just smart enough to know that. People love to slap a partner on their life problems like a tourniquet that’ll keep them from bleeding out on the floor.” I walk into the kitchen where I down two glasses of water before rummaging in the fridge for some orange juice. Something about that sickly sweet nectar always makes me feel better. 

“You’re right, Draco. It doesn’t fix you. You have to fix yourself before you can weave your life together with someone else’s, and you’re far too broken to have a relationship of any kind.”

Ouch. How did this conversation land here? As I’m winding up for another round of insults, she saves me from my own forked tongue. 

“Look… I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about Harry, but this is exactly why. I’m stressed enough about pulling this wedding together. I didn’t need you reverting to sixth year and turning this into a Drama Queen Draco moment. I figured you’d barely see each other at the reception, and that would be it. Honestly, I had no idea that he was getting here a week early. I’m guessing he just wanted to see Hermione and Ron and all that. It was the wrong call, okay? I should have just ripped the bandaid off or whatever nonsense it is that Muggles say.”

“Thanks… it just would have been nice to have a bit of warning. That’s all.” I lean my pounding head against the cool stainless steel of the refrigerator door. 

“I understand. I’m sorry… Draco, about the rest—”

“Don’t mention it.” This is one of the reasons our friendship has endured. We can have a big punch-up, and then all is forgiven. We don’t hold grudges against each other, which is sort of hilarious considering how absurdly, dramatically long we can hold them against other people. “Well, in the spirit of telling each other everything, I should probably let you know I fucked him last night.”

“What?!” She tosses the bedcovers off so violently, I can hear it through the phone. “Brunch. Details. Now.”

  
  


***

Even though I’ve been coming here weekly for five long months, I spend a good twenty minutes standing in front of the towering brick building while I contemplate making a run for it. I thought a gossipy brunch with Pansy would cushion the blow, get me all pumped with endorphins that would last the whole way here. Sadly, brunch was… invasive. Pansy’s questions went from playful to pointed far too quickly, making it harder to convince myself that a one-night indiscretion with Potter was an innocuous bit of fun that won’t result in unintended ramifications. She went from asking me for dick details with mischievous eyes to asking if he was going to be my date to the wedding, if we’d buried the hatchets of our past, if he seemed okay, and on and on. It was a game of twenty questions that felt like a proper police interrogation. The only thing missing was the sparse room with only a chair and a lightbulb suspended from the ceiling. 

A man walks by with a dachshund on a leash. He’s handsome in a fatherly sort of way: salt and pepper hair, shawl-collar cardigan that’s just a bit too thick for April, tasteful tailored slacks. We smile politely at one another while I pretend that I’m waiting for someone instead of just standing on the pavement staring at a walk-up. 

Looks like he’s heading toward Dulwich Park. It’s a nice day. Sunny, but the brightness has gone down a few notches since this morning. Healthy breeze. 

I could leave.

I could. 

That’s the thing about adulthood: no one can  _ make _ you do anything. There’s no detention if I don’t go to therapy. If I hang a left, get on the tube, go the fuck back to my flat, and spend the rest of the day in bed with the covers over my head, McGonagall won’t sentence me to Forbidden Forest duty (to this day, I still can’t believe Hogwarts insisted on doling out punishments that could  _ actually get us killed, _ but that’s a rant for another time). 

But there’s a catch to this freedom: everything is your fault, and your own brain’s cycle of guilt and depression is punishment enough. Or at least mine is. Maybe no one  _ else _ will punish me, but living with the repercussions of my own shit decisions is often worse. It makes me bloody yearn for childhood’s simplistic systems of censure. 

Sure, I could skip therapy, but I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the day. I’d be lying in the comfort of those high thread count sheets feeling like an utter piece of shit, my brain reciting all the ways I’m worthless on repeat until I either:

1) work myself into exhaustion, enough to sleep the thoughts away 

2) give up and drink the thoughts away  _ or _

3) enter the uncontrollable crying stage of a depressive episode 

This is the train of thought I follow while I stand on the street every Saturday afternoon, coffee in hand, my intestines wringing themselves out in a painful tango that never seems to lessen from week to week. In the end, I always reach the same conclusion: march your lazy, cowardly arse into the waiting room, Draco. 

See? Didn’t I tell you I was working on my bad behaviors?

I only spend a couple of knee-jostling minutes in a waiting room chair before Carolyn (she’s informal like that) gingerly opens her door, and, wearing a warm smile, waves me into her office. 

“How are we doing today, Draco?”

“Peachy. Perfect. Not a single complaint except for… you know,” I gesture vaguely toward the window that looks down onto the tree-lined street. 

“The outside world?”

“Yes! That! Haven’t figured out how to live my life without that pesky thing bothering me.”

She chuckles and sits in the chair across from me, primly crossing her legs. Her office looks more like a library than an office. Bookshelves lining two of the walls, ornate rugs on the hardwood floor, red velvety armchairs that are so inviting, you could easily imagine sinking into their embrace and getting lost in a good book for a few hours. 

“Well, that’s the trouble with the world, isn’t it? It’s always there.”

“Quite.” I give a forced smile and pick at the fabric of the chair.

“How was your week? Anything happen that you would like to talk about?” This is one of her strengths. She’s amiable but professional. Not too clinical but not so friendly as to be bad at her job. I think being a therapist is sort of like being a parent in that way. You have to gain your client’s trust, but you’re not there to be their friend. You are there to keep them in line.

“Uuuuuhhhh…” I am a master of eloquence.

“Remember, this is your time. We don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to, but if there’s something bothering you, never forget that’s what I’m here for.” She’s good.

“I sort of… had sex with an old… friend last night.”  _ Friend _ ... HA.

“Had you been intimate with this person before or was this a new turn to your relationship?”

“Oh, definitely new. It was… well, it was Harry Potter.” I grimace while I wait for her reaction. I forgot to mention that Carolyn is a wizard living a Muggle life, like me. Her Muggle clients don’t know this, and her wizarding patients have to sign a document agreeing to exercise the utmost discretion. It’s the only way I could do this. Therapy isn’t worth a ten pence if you can’t be completely honest.

“Wow! Way to bury the lede, Draco.” She raises her eyebrows and leans back in her chair. We both laugh, and she gives me a moment. She never rushes me, which is key. I’m obstinate as they come; rushing me only makes my lid tighten so much, you’ll never be able to pry it open again.

“Yeah, it’s… maybe the weirdest drunken mistake—well, I don’t  _ know _ if it was a mistake—but it’s the weirdest drunken decision I’ve ever made.”

“You were drunk when it happened?”

“Yeah…” I can feel my face getting hot. How does she make me disappointed in myself without even trying? She’s just posing a simple question for clarification, but suddenly I feel sheepish and small in that armchair. We’ve talked about my drunken regrets before. Oooohhh, how we’ve talked about them… 

“Do you regret it?”

“The sex or being drunk?”

“Either.”

“Hard to regret touching a cock that magnificent.” 

She smiles and sighs in the way I know to mean  _ “stop deflecting,” _ and I flop my head back against the chair.

“I’m reserving my judgment. Waiting to see if the shit hits the fan.”

“You think there will be negative consequences?”

“I mean, he’s me, and I’m… Draco Malfoy.”

“So?”

I make a chagrined noise in the back of my throat and roll my eyes because there is still a petulant child who lives inside me. He takes up residence somewhere between my unresolved issues and the mid-level drinking problem I’ve developed to deal with those unresolved issues.

“What do you mean ‘so?’ He’s Harry sodding Potter, and I’m Draco Malfoy. You know our history!”

“I do, but it’s been a long time. You’re different people now. The war is over, and you’ve both had many different experiences since then. I’m not surprised that you would find comfort and common ground. You have the kind of shared background you can’t talk to just anyone about. Tell me, what is it you’re scared of happening?”

“That I’ll… become the old me. That just being around him will ignite something, and everything I hate about myself will come to the surface like that ugly layer of green goop on a swamp.” Well… didn’t expect that. This is how it always goes. I’m terrified to come here, but then I do and things become clearer. Truths tumble out, and while everything might not be completely solved, and I might not be happy about what I’ve learned, it’s less muddy than before.

“Draco, what do you have control over?”

“Myself and my actions,” I repeat with practiced ease, the words coming out in an irksome grumble. I hate when she’s right. I mean, it’s why I come here, but I still hate it. 

“Exactly. You can’t control Harry or what he might do. You can only control how you react to him. Now, the fact that you’re already vigilant of how he’s raised your hackles in the past is good. It’s good to be mindful. That said, don’t let yourself be consumed by ‘what if’s. Just stay in the present moment. If you feel yourself starting to slip into thoughts reminiscent of the reactive way you used to be, don’t push them away. That will only make it worse. Let the thoughts happen, identify them for what they are, and discard them.”

“Oh yes, so easy to do.”

“It is if you get at it right away, and I know you can. You’re pretty self-aware even if you like to pretend you aren’t.”

My inner child is rearing its head again; he wants to scoff at this, but adult me wins out. I just smile at her.

“I try.” 

“You do a better job than you give yourself credit for.” 

Bless her.

“Not everyone thinks that! Certainly not Pansy this morning.” I meant what I said about not holding grudges. I’m not feeling righteously indignant about what she said. On the contrary, I’m feeling extremely terrified that it might be true.

“Did you argue this morning?”

“You could call it that, yeah. We went another round about how I drink too much and don’t want to settle down into domestic bliss with any of the men whose cocks I’ve enjoyed.”

“Did it bother you because you think there’s some truth in it or because you  _ don’t _ think she’s right?” Carolyn for the win.

“Have I told you that I really hate it when you ask questions you already know the answer to?”

“I’m not here to make assumptions, Draco. Observations, yes, but I’d prefer you tell me what you were thinking before I say anything else.”

“How dare you make me do the work I’m absolutely supposed to be doing.” I let out an exaggerated sigh, and she laughs. “I… yes, I think she’s a little right. Everyone kind of… slowed down after we left our early twenties, and I just kept right on. It’s starting to really fuck with me. My hangovers aren’t just headaches anymore. The morning after, my anxiety is ten times worse. I’m irritable; I get depressed more easily. It’s like the toll I pay for having fun is… It’s starting to not be worth it. And if that’s true, I’m not sure why I’m still doing it.”

“Alcohol isn’t great for mood regulation, and it gets worse the older we get. Our bodies get worse at processing it, and that factor is usually exacerbated in anyone with mood disorders, chronic depression, anxiety. It’s a problem people don’t talk about enough, in my opinion.” She gives me a sympathetic smile. “The conversation around substance abuse tends to revolve around the extremes: people who have no problem at all and people who are so dependent, they will experience immediate withdrawal. But there’s a whole spectrum in between. You don’t have to experience dependence to the point of rock bottom to be harmed. Think of all the times people with high anxiety accidentally drink a little too much coffee and spend the next few hours with racing thoughts and a pounding heart. Alcohol can be much the same. I’m not surprised to hear you’re experiencing this. I’ve noticed that, if you come here after a night of drinking, you’re very on edge.”

“And when were you going to tell me this?”

“When the time was right. Timing is everything if you want a conversation to go well, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yeeesss, I’d bloody well agree, Carolyn! Merlin! What do I do now? I have Harry Potter in town, and my oldest and most high maintenance friend is marrying my second oldest high maintenance friend. This is the absolute worst time to try sobriety.”

“There will always be something, Draco. Life is full of stressors. Looking for the perfect time to stop is just a way to put it off. You didn’t grow up in a house that rewarded vulnerability, and I think that since alcohol allowed you to push past your inhibitions, it’s become a bit of a crutch for you in social situations. You don’t need alcohol to give you permission to be vulnerable, Draco. This is another thing you’re better at than you think you are.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.” I take a deep breath and run a hand down my face. “I guess I have to give it a shot, don’t I?”

“If you want to feel better, yes, I think you do. You’ve voiced concern over your drinking enough times that I think you’ll regret it if you don’t give sobriety a trial run. It’s time. When you’re already at the end of your rope, what’s the worst that could happen?” 

  
  


***

  
  


When I step back out into the street, I’m overtaken by that strange post-therapy mixed bag of feelings. It’s like you feel both heavier and lighter at once? Burdens are lifted, confusion sorts itself out, but there are new problems settling into the pit of your stomach. New facets of your particular brand of fucked up that you’ll have to let swim around in your brain until you can fully unwind them in the next session. 

Remember what I said about prescribed things? When I was a teenager, I did as much therapy as the court mandated, but it was all wizarding Healer nonsense which… oh God, how to summarize this all nice and succinctly? It’s like being treated for the symptoms but not the problem causing those symptoms. I had some good revelatory cries in those sessions, but they never dug into the root of it all. They didn’t look at the big picture of my brain and my life the way Carolyn does, and after I’d paid my dues and completed my hours? Teenage Draco said  _ “if I’m not having nightmares anymore about snakes sprouting from my tattoo and strangling me while the Dark Lord laughs, what do I need therapy for?” _

It took a lonely Draco crying on the floor in Pansy’s arms, telling her how he was never going to be loved the way Blaise loves her—I know, I know, I keep yelling at her that I don’t care about those things. I’m a hypocritical prat—to finally realize I needed to fill in all the gaps the Healer never did. Pansy says it’s  _ “maintenance, just like you do with your body. You don’t wait until something breaks down to get it checked out. You get check-ups every year.”  _ She’s right, but it still took me six months after that crying episode to get my arse to Carolyn’s office. 

I’m… sorting it out bit by bit, I guess. 

I pull out my phone and stare at Harry’s number. I need a post-therapy treat.

“Hullo?”

“Hey, you.”

“Hey yourself.” Harry’s words come out sultry and sweet, like he’s wrapping them around me in bed. The fondness is unbearable, and I don’t know what I’ve done to earn it. 

“Want to waste some time with me?”

“Absolutely.”

My grin is so wide, it makes my face ache.

  
  


***

  
  


We’re sitting by the lake in Dulwich Park, eating curry, samosas and vindaloo out of paper containers. The sun is glinting off the water and Harry’s beautiful, messy hair. Everything is still and quiet. There are a few people milling about, but it’s rather solitary for a Saturday.

“Harry… I can’t let it go. Why are you being like this?” Maybe it’s because I’m fresh out of therapy and in the mood to tackle my problems instead of letting them fester, but I have to ask.

“Like what?” He doesn’t look at me as he tosses a bit of naan to the ducks, and I wonder if he won’t meet my eyes because he knows exactly what I mean.

“All ‘everything is jolly good, and I’ve never hated Draco Malfoy a day in my blessed life.’”

“I wouldn’t say I’ve had a blessed life,” he mutters, wiping his hands on his jeans and leaning his back against the oak tree behind us.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

His eyes flit over to mine and back to the pond.

“If that’s really what you want, then let’s talk about why you wouldn’t let me see your chest.”

“Fuck…” I’ve played myself.

“That’s what I thought. Look, we can talk about it if you want to, Draco, but I don’t see what good it’ll do. I spent so many years thinking about all of that nonstop, and what I learned is that I’d rather make a clean slate of it. For me and for everyone else. It’s what we deserve.”

“Okay, if you’ve confronted it and dealt with it, that’s all well and good, but  _ we _ haven’t. Not together. Ignoring things doesn’t really work. They have a way of rising up if you try to shove them down.” I sound like Carolyn, which always makes me want to roll my eyes at myself, but it’s usually a good indicator that I’m doing something right. 

He turns his head and looks at me with an intensity I can feel in my bones. The silence stretches on, and it’s then that I realize he’s waiting for me to kick it off.

“I have scars on my chest. They’re from you. When you cast  _ Sectumsempra _ .” He opens his mouth and leans forward, but I hold up my hand. “I was honestly as surprised as you were when I freaked out. I didn’t know I’d be so bothered by you seeing them, and I’m not even sure that would be the case a second time around? Like, right now, I’m not bothered by telling you this. I don’t know… maybe it was just too much to process for one drunken night? I tend to not want to get into the heavy shit when I’m drunk. It goes south very quickly.”

“That makes sense. I… Merlin, Draco, I’m so sorry. Trust me when I say that was one of the most terrible things I’ve ever done. It took a long time to forgive myself for it, but I should have asked for your forgiveness too. I guess I never thought you’d want to talk about it. I figured it’d be like dredging up something for my own sake, so I could feel better. I didn’t want to force that on you. It’s not your responsibility to absolve me, you know? Does that make sense?”

“It does. It’s…” I laugh and scoot closer to him.

“What?”

“I don’t know. I guess I thought this would be a more painful conversation, but you’re being very reasonable, dammit.”

“I can punch you for old time’s sake, if you like? Turn you into a ferret?” He smiles and bumps my shoulder with his.

“I’ll pass.” I give him a kiss, partly because I want to and partly because I’m curious what he’ll do. He kisses me back, making a pleased little hum that stirs everything below my waist to attention.

“We really build things up to catastrophe in our heads, huh?”

“I don’t think it’s unwarranted in this case, though. If past behavior is an indicator of future behavior and all that…” I wave my hand between the two of us.

“Yeah, but like… time healing all wounds isn’t just a bloody stupid cliché. Seven years ago? This conversation would have absolutely ended in blows, but everything falls away after a while. You start to think about it all differently. All of us were scared kids looking to the adults in our lives to tell us what to do, and they were all just as lost as us. It’s like when I ran into Blaise. I didn’t see a sixteen-year-old kid anymore. We were just these two blokes happy to see each other, and we went straight to catching up. I saw this picture of you… he showed it to me the night I ran into him. You were in your bar having the time of your life. This tall drag queen dressed like Dolly Parton was carrying you bridal style while you waved to the room like you owned it, cigarette in your mouth, glass of whiskey in your other hand. I saw it, and I just thought… ‘I want to know  _ that _ Draco Malfoy.’ So when I came here, I figured I’d give it a shot. It worked with Blaise, why not try it a second time? What’s the worst that could happen?” That’s the second time today that someone has uttered that phrase about a potentially disastrous risk. Maybe they both have a point. If the worst thing is going to happen, it’s going to happen regardless of what you do, so you may as well try and hope for the best.

“You were stalking me, weren’t you? Following me into Twilfitt and Tattings just like sixth year. You’re obsessed, and who could blame you? Just look at me.” I lean back on my elbows and smirk. He slaps me on the arm.

“Fuck off, Draco. I wasn’t following you. I was wandering about trying to buy clothes for the wedding, and then you burst in and hit me with a fucking door. The universe just wanted us to run into each other, I guess.”

“I’m sort of glad the universe is a meddlesome arsehole.”

“Me too.”

“I… thanks for the apology, Harry. I haven’t been harboring a vendetta over this. Really, I haven’t, but… it was still really nice to hear that.”

“Of course. I owed it to you.” 

“Now that we’ve gone over that, it’s only fair that I formally tell you how sorry I am. For everything. Every bullying little twat thing I did, every racist thing I said, every bad decision I made during the war.”

“I know you are. But thanks for telling me.” He combs his fingers through my hair and smiles at me. It can’t be this easy. Surely, it can’t, but I’ll take it for now. Live in the present. I chant it like a mantra because Carolyn’s right. I can’t do anything about the future until it arrives on whatever hellfire train it’s hitched itself onto.

“Is it too forward to ask you to come back to mine?” How’s that for seizing the moment?

“How could it be too forward? Did you forget that we’ve already had sex?”

“I just didn’t want you to think I was only using you for that very nice cock of yours.”

“You say that like I’d mind if you were,” Harry quips, and damn if that banter doesn’t turn me on. He always matches me beat for beat.

“What the hell are we waiting for, then?” 

He helps me up off the grass, and I think that life might be the most fierce and fickle mistress, but it’s also a wondrous bitch from time to time.

  
  


***

  
  


“I think I liked doing the adrenaline junkie stuff because it doesn’t scare me. It’s not  _ real _ danger. People think it is, but... people like us? We know better. I dunno…” Harry takes a thoughtful pause, chopsticks hovering above the open takeout container. We’ve been virtually sequestered in my flat for two days, leaving only for takeout and fresh air and cigarettes on the rooftop. It’s been alarmingly domestic: the two of us just chatting about anything that pops into our mercurial heads,  _ Absolutely Fabulous _ on the telly, sex when we feel like it. Not drinking hasn’t really been a problem because I’m too preoccupied, and for his part, he hasn’t seemed to notice that I’ve stopped.

“Like exposure therapy?”

“Yes!” He gestures excitedly, pointing at me with his chopsticks, a stray noodle falling onto the table. He talks with his hands. It’s adorable. “I mean, I know bungee jumping isn’t exactly the same as being on the run from racist, religious fanatics in the wizarding world. It’s more like… doing dangerous things that were  _ safe _ was therapeutic for me. It healed all these broken associations in my head and replaced them with something new. People think I’m barking mad when I say that. I can’t seem to explain it in a way that makes sense to people. Well… most people.”

He smiles at me when he says that last sentence. I’m the exception to the rule. I’m a person he doesn’t have to explain things to. Merlin, what witchery is going on here?

I glance over to the telly and see Patsy and Edina getting drunk at a wine tasting. 

_ “Now, which, this one? We've tried this one. I like this one. It's this one. This is the one, Pats. This one. This is the one, sweetie.”  _

“I think this is my favorite episode. Funniest thing I’ve ever fucking seen.” I look over, and he’s watching me with an intensity that I can tell is about to result in one of his uncomfortably acute assessments.

“You haven’t been drinking.” I guess I spoke too soon about him not noticing that. He was  _ stealthily _ noticing. He does that a lot.

“Yeah… trying to give it up for a while.” 

“Hard to do if you own a bar.” 

I don’t say anything. In fact, I shove an eggroll into my mouth so I  _ can’t _ say anything, but eventually I’m done chewing the bloody thing, my perilously loquacious lips free to betray me. 

“I worry I won’t like myself if I stop drinking. That everything I’ve loosened will tighten right back up until I’m a stodgy elitist arsehole again.” Why?? Did I?? Say that?? My tongue is a wily serpent around him. His stupidly kind face inspires naked, open confessions. Maybe he should be a therapist. 

“Draco, it’s not the alcohol that loosened you up. You grew up. You did the ugly self-reflection thing and chose a different life for yourself. You made friends. You moved here.” 

“Maybe… A lot of people would argue I didn’t really commit to the ‘growing up’ part.”

“Well, I’d like to tell them all that growing up isn’t something we do all at once. I think we’re always doing it.”

“An actual life sentence,” I groan, slumping into the couch.

“I know. It’s sort of the worst. But it’s also kind of beautiful.”

I smile at him because it’s impossible not to. I wish I could bottle his optimism. Spritz it on myself like perfume every day.

“There’s also this thing called ‘I don’t want to be alone with my thoughts.’ When you pour bourbon on top of them, they get a little quieter.”

“They don’t really though. I mean… yeah, for a bit, but then they come back twice as hard,” he says, and of course, he’s right.

“Have you been talking to my therapist?” 

“Oh Merlin, Draco Malfoy has a therapist!” He laughs, and I want to scowl, but it’s a sweet laugh. Not a mocking one.

“Yes, Dr. Carolyn Graves. What’s it to you, Potter? Are you going to hold my growth against me after you  _ literally _ just preached about the importance of it?” I lob a throw pillow at him, and he catches it, his mouth agape.

“Draco… she was  _ my _ therapist before I left!”

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

“No! I still saw her for a while after too. We’d just do phone sessions from wherever I was. Or firecall if I was in wizarding territory.”

“I can’t fucking believe this. My life is one giant, cruel irony.”

“I don’t think it’s that surprising, to be honest. I mean, who in the entire world needs therapy more than the two of us?”

I throw another pillow at him.

“Why are you throwing things at me?! I’m right! You know I am!”

“That’s exactly  _ why _ I’m throwing things at you, Harry.”

Before I can open my snarky mouth again, he pulls me to him, my back to his chest, his chin on my shoulder. We watch telly and make stupid jokes and nibble on Chinese takeout. After a while, we stop talking altogether, but it’s not a tense silence. 

It’s the most comfortable quiet I’ve ever experienced with another person.

I don’t know whether to be scared of that or excited by it.

Eventually, my cantankerous brain just decides to be both.

  
  


***

“You really like bottoming, don’t you?” I’ve taken him three times in as many hours, and his enthusiasm hasn’t dampened one bit. He’s the picture of wanton surrender every time, moaning and spreading himself open for me in a way I will never, ever forget as long as I live. It’s dangerously good. We read one another’s bodies like they’re our own. If I’m being honest, there’s an aspect of it that spooks me a bit, but I’m not ready to dwell on it yet. I just want to have this for now.

“Yeah. I mean, I like it all,” he says with raised eyebrows, tracing a finger across my collarbone and snuggling into the crook of my arm, “but I love touching my cock and just having my prostate,” Harry makes a dreamy face and an obscene hand gesture to suggest a good pounding, and I almost die laughing, “you know?” 

“So you’re just a greedy boy?” I don’t know why I say it that way, but I do. Something about him always inspires this whimsy laden with smolder, this sexy banter whose familiarity is disturbingly easy to fall into. 

“And you love giving the greedy boy what he wants.” He licks along the shell of my ear, and I shiver.

He’s right. I do. I really, really do to an alarming extent. 

“Your cock was made to fuck my arse. You know exactly how to give me what I want.” He’s rutting against my side now, his cock sliding against my thigh as it fills out, and I can’t believe we’re seriously about to go for round four. 

“I want you to fuck me.” I don’t even have time to process the desire before it’s out of my mouth and floating in the air like a tangible promise. 

He pulls back, that irresistible puzzled wrinkle appearing between his brow before giving way to a pleased smile. 

“You’re surprised,” I say.

“Well, yeah…” He doesn’t elaborate until I raise my eyebrows. “You just give off such big top energy. I just assumed.” 

“Well, look who’s making heteronormative assumptions.” 

“Oh shut it, you sound like Hermione.” 

“Oh God, that’s the last person I want to think about in bed.” 

“Really? I could think of a few worse. Snape for one.” 

“Are you trying to make me never want to sleep with you ever again? If so, it’s working.”

“Sorry,” Harry laughs. “Let’s get back to the important things. I believe there was something about you desperately wanting my cock up your arse?” 

“Desperate is a strong choice of words.” Good for me, maintaining restraint on my overwhelming thirst for him. Although considering everything that’s transpired over the last two days, I doubt I have him fooled. 

He strokes down my balls, like he’s feeling the shape of me, massaging with perfect pressure until he reaches beneath them. I spread my legs until his fingers dip down further, rubbing across my hole and— 

“What?” I gasp as I feel a wet warmth. “How did you do—ooohhh.” I moan helplessly like I’m still a hormonal, teenage live wire, sizzling and out of control at the slightest current dancing across my nerves. It’s like I’d forgotten how to fuck, what sex could mean, what it could be, how it could feel like so much more than the touch of skin on skin, this perfunctory dance I’d memorized the steps to, no surprise or excitement in it anymore, just a routine chorus of grunts and exertion. Attract, reel in, release, repeat. “You didn’t even—no words,” I choke out raggedly. 

I’m delirious, and he’s pumping his fingers inside me so slowly, stroking me from the inside out in a way that feels too loving, too attentive. I’m squirming and letting out these broken moans that sound like plaintive begging, my lip quivering, my eyelids fluttering of their own accord. I can feel it all, feel how I’m flushed and full of yearning in a way I rarely let anyone see. 

I think maybe  _ no one _ has ever seen me quite like this, and it scares me, paralyzes me with a visceral terror of portended aftermath. But he’s looking at me like he’s never seen anything more mesmerizing, stroking and stroking until I feel so hot I’m sure I’ll dissolve into the atmosphere, and he’s biting his lip to stifle his own moans as he fucks against my thigh, his thick, perfect prick just rutting and rutting. I can tell he doesn’t even know he’s doing it. He’s as helpless and beholden to this moment as I am, his body mindlessly moving along, and while I can’t say  _ how _ I know it, I just do. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. 

He looks at me with those deep pools of viridian, and I know. 

“I—I,” he starts and then stops, his gaze rapidly shifting from my face to the place where his fingers are working me open, “I can’t do it very often. I have to—it only works when I really, really want something.” 

We both gasp as his fingers crook inside me again, relentlessly pushing against that spot like he already knows all my body’s secrets, and the thought of this, of some secret powerful well of wandless, wordless magic deep inside him activating because of me, because of his craving for me, makes me feel like I might die if he doesn’t fuck me. He’s saved some special part of his greatness for me, something all of those people who want a piece of him can’t have. I’m making his body respond in this way, and it’s bleeding through his magic.

I want him to fuck me into the mattress until I can barely move. 

“Harry, fuckmefuckmepleaseIwantit.” I know how pathetically I’m begging, but I can’t bother with dignity right now. Who needs dignity when his eyes turn to primal fire like that? 

“You want me to fuck you?” he purrs, sucking on my neck and pulling my hair just the way I like, teasing my cleft with his hard cock, every agonizing drag of it like the most glorious torture. 

“Yesyesyes I—come on, Harry.” 

“Anything you want, baby. I love giving you what you want,” he murmurs in my ear, and it’s just about sex, isn’t it? It couldn’t be about anything else. He flips me onto my stomach and maneuvers me onto my knees. I keep my cheek pressed to the pillow, my arms easing under it, and he enters me in one slick slide. He prepped me so well, I’m beyond ready.

Everything is hot, hot, hot, that sort of heat that spreads through you when you first start to become aware of it, when you first look at someone when you’re young and everything explodes too quickly to trace it. 

“God, Draco, you feel so fucking good.” He reaches around, skating his palms across my chest as he says it, and I don’t flinch. It’s weird, but it doesn’t bother me anymore. That conversation by the lake, the way he made me feel listened to,  _ understood, _ it just unlocked something. I hate myself for making it harder by getting drunk that first night. Why am I always running from this? It’s so much better like this, nothing dulling my senses, nothing getting in the way. He’s mouthing at my neck, his chest folding over my back now, his chin on my shoulder, his hips driving his cock so deep inside me. “It doesn’t—it doesn’t feel like this with other people.”

“Me either.” Admitting it makes me want to cry, but it’s true. 

He chuckles softly, and I turn my head so I can see him. His eyes are bright and big, his cheeks pink, his mouth open and panting.

“What?” I can barely eke it out between my own desperate moans. 

“I was just thinking,” he turns his head and kisses me so hard, I’m more breathless than I thought possible, “we should have done this years ago.”

“I don’t think I would have been ready,” I confess, and he smiles sadly with a little nod, stroking my hair and fucking into me. He’s looking at me like he wants to take care of me, like he knows everything that aches and how to make it feel better.

“I know. I know,” he whispers, covering my cheek and neck and shoulder with kisses, reaching around to stroke my cock, matching the rhythm of his pistoning hips, hitting my prostate with every thrust.

My back arches, my fingers fisting the sheets as I come, his tongue in my ear as he whispers how beautiful I am, how much he loves making me come. He fucks me through it, and I love the boneless feeling of lying there, spent and almost in a trance underneath him, a glossy finish that lacquers over the whole world, everything fuzzy and light.

I can feel his cock jumping inside me when he comes, his arms tight around my chest, stroking my scars as he says my name.

We don’t bother cleaning up. I imagine he’s probably as exhausted as I am.

“I like spending time with you,” I say, snuggling against his chest. It’s too sincere, and I hardly realize how much I mean it until it’s  _ out _ there. Too late to put the genie back in the bottle. 

“Of course you do.” 

“That’s supposed to be my line. How’d we get turned around? Is it body swap day?” I lift my head to spear him with the formidable Draco Malfoy scowl. 

“Dunno, but I had to take the moment while I could. Strike while you’re all sweet and mushy.” 

“Oh Merlin, I’m not—” And then he kisses me softly, casual as can be, as though we’ve done this hundreds of times, and this is why I can’t shake the mistaken, creeping notion of hope that this is more. Nothing more dangerous in this world than hope. Hope nearly killed me during the war.

Oh well… it’s just sex, right? Nothing disruptive and complicated ever came out of two people fucking and trying to keep their emotions out of it. 

Nope.

Never.

He traces the Dark Mark. Is it an absent movement, just part of the post-coital routine, a person lazily running their fingertips over the body next to them? Weirdly, I don’t mind if it’s more. Something about being locked in here for days, just the two of us, the outside world a forgotten pest, makes it less daunting to talk about these old sore subjects. 

“Does it bother you?” Harry asks.

“Not anymore. There was a time when…” My fingers join his, following the lines of the serpent. “It took a while to accept that it would always be there, but it was like any other reminder of that time. I knew that thinking about it forever would kill me. So I practiced acceptance until it wasn’t just an act anymore.”

He gives me a knowing nod and a smile before he lays his head on my chest. I fall asleep with Harry’s fingers stroking my scars. 


	3. Conflict Resolution Or: Can Life Really Be Like the Marriage Plot?

You know what  _ does _ invariably come with complications? Putting a bunch of former classmates who all have varying degrees of horrendously fraught history with one another in the same room.

And if you want to throw some more petrol on top of the molotov cocktail? You know, really feed the volatile blaze? Add some alcohol into the mix! At  _ my _ bar, nonetheless! Because why not make it as weird as possible?

I know I said I’d give sobriety a shot.

I also know I said I’d do it  _ now _ instead of putting it off until after the wedding, but I’m sitting next to Harry Potter while Hermione Granger, Ron Weasley, Pansy Parkinson, and Blaise Zabini are across from us. The way they’re arranged around this circular table, judgmental eyes fixed on the two of us, flinching anytime we touch, feels like an adolescent nightmare I’ve probably had, my peers assembled in court, gavel at the ready to sentence me to the kind of humiliating punishment that would only show up in a dream. Giving Dumbledore a lap dance while the whole Great Hall watches or something.

Harry hasn’t directly said anything about me ordering a beer, but he did raise an eyebrow. I shrugged, and he did the same as if to say  _ your funeral. _

“This place is amazing, Draco! I have to admit, I’ve been kind of curious about it.” Hermione, bless her heart, actually sounds sincere when she says that.

“Uhhh, thanks.” I try to smile, but I can tell by her reaction that it’s more of a grimace. I look dreadful when I try to force a smile. Pansy narrows her eyes in warning and knocks my shin under the table with the pointy toe of one of her black heels.

“So… if I’m not mistaken, you two have been shagging ever since Harry got back?” Ron asks it like an accusation, and I take that as my cue to down my entire beer in a succession of rather disgusting gulps. 

“Oh-ho, this is exactly the entertainment I was hoping for tonight. Cheers!” Blaise clinks his glass with Ron’s, and I want to strangle them both.

“Boys, let’s try to be civil. The bride-to-be wants to have the delightful kind of drunken night that ends in bad karaoke and bad diner food, not fisticuffs.” 

I exchange glances with Blaise because this is a very oddly adult, reasonable request from Pansy, the queen of stirring the drama cocktail just to watch it spin. He holds up his hands in surrender.

“Look, if your best mate left to travel the globe, and you hadn’t seen him in person in years, you’d be asking the same thing! He came round for a bit, and then popped off again. It’s beyond weird, and I’ve never been good at not saying the thing everyone is trying really hard not to say.”

This is absolutely true, and I can’t really blame Ron for being the blunt Weasley he’s always been. It is weird, and it’s the same question I keep torturing myself with. I’m honestly curious about how Harry is going to answer this.

He doesn’t say anything though. He just looks sheepishly down in his lap, and he looks so much like eleven-year-old ragamuffin Harry. It squeezes my tender heart in a sharp, sudden way. The several beers I’ve had have elevated my misbehavior a level or two so I impulsively crawl into his lap. The entire table is looking aghast at this, but fuck them. It’s a gay bar. If I can’t publicly straddle a man here, where can I?

“Married people are so fucking boring, Harry. Why do they have such sticks up their arses? Is there something in their wedding bands? Leaks into their skin and infects them with insipid bullshit? Replaces everything fun with knitting circles, baked cookies and little placards that say ‘live laugh love?’” At first, it’s going alright. Harry stifles laughter as he looks right at me and no one else. There’s a triumph in it. It’s childish, I know, but I feel so confident and sexy and powerful in that moment, eleven-year-old me vindicated and wanting to shout from every rooftop that Harry prefers me at this moment. He wants  _ me. _

But then it’s over. He’s blushing as his eyes flit to their disapproving glances, and now he’s shoving me off. I am furious, and that fury is fueled by a lot of lager.

“Oh, are you embarrassed of me now? You can fuck me in my flat, but I can’t sit on your lap where people could see?”

“No, Draco, that’s not… you obviously know I told them about us! I’m just trying to keep the peace here. It’s a bit of a tense situation—” He’s being completely rational. He hasn’t done anything other than remove me from his lap. He’s touched me in front of them. He’s been honest. I know this. But I’m drunk, and I can’t stop the maelstrom that’s building, the angry swarm of red swallowing me up like a great big dragon’s mouth. 

“Tense situation, my arse. What I see are two people judging you like they have any right to decide how you’re going to live your life.” Somewhere in the back of my intoxicated brain, I know I’m not really talking about him, but the projection is already flowing out. I can’t put an end to it. Not when I’m like this. It’s like trying to stop a train with only your hands.

“Excuse you, Draco,” Hermione interjects. “That’s not at all what’s going on here, and I’m sorry but do you even have any idea why Harry left? Do you know anything that happened to him after the war? I doubt you learned everything in five days.” 

Hermione is stern, but her voice is still measured, the expert mediator trying to restore some order to this situation before it goes off the rails. Instead of calming me, it just makes me angrier.

“No, excuse  _ you, _ Granger.” Oh God, what am I doing? How has this whole table lapsed into years-old dynamics? “We’ve talked about anything and everything over the last five days because he trusts me, and I trust him. Maybe I’m easier for him to talk to than you. Did you ever think of that?”

Hermione’s eyes flash with impending storm, and Blaise and Pansy are not revelling in it at all. They’re wearing the kind of looks parents have when their children throw tantrums in public.

“Draco, let’s just go out for a cigarette, yeah?” Harry tugs on my arm desperately, and there must be at least a little of Sober Draco left because I follow him.

“Why are you being such an arsehole?” he hisses when we’re safe outside, and I light a cigarette. 

“I  _ am _ an arsehole or haven’t you heard? I’m Draco Malfoy, remember?” I don’t know why I keep responding to everything with more defensiveness, but it’s like standing in those paralyzed dreams where you scream to warn someone but no sound comes out. You’re shouting yourself hoarse, but they don’t hear you. You can’t stop it. I am somehow both the person in danger and the one causing it. 

“No, you’re not.” 

“Oh yes, I am. Ask everyone in there.” 

“I know they’re a bit prickly, but you could have gotten rid of that if you’d just waded through the awkward part,” Harry says, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “All you’re doing now is proving them right, and I know they’re not, but... I don’t have much of a leg to stand on right now.” 

“Well, that’s for the best, isn’t it? Natural order restored. We’re just old Draco and Harry now. Maybe that’s how it’s supposed to be.”

“Don’t do that. Don’t be a coward. You’re better than that.”

“Am I? Hermione’s right. We’ve only been hanging out a few days, Harry. We don’t know each other. Not really.”

“Yeah… maybe you’re right.” 

Usually I like being right, but when he frowns at me with profound disappointment and walks back in the bar, leaving me alone and cold on the pavement, I don’t feel righteous.

I don’t feel like I’ve won anything at all.

I know I shouldn’t do this. I’m too drunk. 

Still, heedless of all the ways this could go wrong, I close my eyes and picture a tall, imposing home of stone and spires.

It’s only when I’m tumbling onto the green acres that stretch before the mansion, the dew on the grass sparkling like crystals in the moonlight, that I begin to think about what a mistake this is.

  
  


***

  
  


“Mother?” I feel like such a lost child wandering the halls of Malfoy Manor. They’re so empty and cavernous. Wind whistles through the drafty stone and down the passages. It’s a place that felt haunted even before all the tragedies that unfolded within its walls, but it was like I couldn’t see it then. Growing up, I only saw the rich brocaded fabric of the tapestries, the iridescent feathers of the peacocks I would gleefully chase in my kneesocks, the feasts that were laid out on the dining room table every Christmas, the scent of meat braised in wine sauce and pudding steeped in brandy, orange peel, and cinnamon. When the rose-tinted glasses fell, they fell hard. I haven’t been able to put them back on again, and I don’t think I ever will. 

I don’t know how she stands it here. It would make me feel like I’m already dead, but maybe she needs to reclaim it.

“Draco?” When I come upon the drawing room, she swishes out in a blue velvet cloak draped over her nightgown. My father might not be dead, but she always manages to look like a Victorian widow in mourning, pacing the moors at midnight. She braces her hand on the doorframe and cants her head. “What are you doing here, darling? Are you alright?”

Something about the way she calls me darling pulls the ripcord on whatever I’m holding back, whatever drew me here tonight, and my lip trembles for all of two seconds before I start crying. The tears have barely begun to fall before she’s enveloped me in her arms, and it feels so good to be held by my mother. Maybe we’re supposed to outgrow that need, but being a person is so incredibly difficult. It’s heavy drudgery that never lets up, a torrential rain soaking your bones from the moment you wake until the moment you sleep. Sometimes even after that. Sleep took a long time to be safe for me. My dreams were saturated with my waking woes, their sinister hands reaching inside to never let me get a moment’s peace. 

Is it wrong to want a little help sometimes? To want someone to hold you and tell you it will be okay, to shoulder the burden for you just a little bit, like they did when you were small?

She takes me into the drawing room, where we sit on the chaise, and I put my head in her lap, my feet drawn up on the fabric. She doesn’t even tell me to take my shoes off. I haven’t been in this room in years, and it’s been even longer since I put my head in her lap like this.

“Would you like anything? Tea or water?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Let me get—” She starts to rise, but I pull her back down with an insistent hand, my fingers wrapped in her cloak.

“Don’t. Just… stay?”

“Of course.” She smiles and smooths my hair back from my forehead. “What happened, Draco?”

“I thought I would feel better by now, you know? And sometimes I do… but it’s not like anything really goes  _ away. _ You just learn to deal with it. I hate that. It’s fucking unfair. Things should just  _ go away.”  _ I sound like a bratty child, but she doesn’t scold me. She just sighs heavily like she understands, and it’s then that I wonder if this is one of the best-kept secrets of adulthood. Are we all wandering around wishing that there was a finish line for everything? That depression, anxiety, taking care of these stupid flesh sacks we’re saddled with, that all of it had a point you reached where you’ve mastered it and can tackle the next problem? Maybe we’re all eternally frustrated by the way everything needs constant maintenance, all of it an ongoing process we have to participate in each day. 

_ “Growing up isn’t something we do all at once. I think we’re always doing it.”  _

Curse that insightful, green-eyed bugger. I’m going to sock him in the jaw the next time I see him. If he ever lets me see him again.

“I’m sorry, love. Taking care of ourselves is one of the hardest jobs we face in this life.”

“Well, I’m handing in my resignation notice. Someone else can take over for a while.”

She chuckles, and I sit up, wiping my eyes with my sleeve. She hands me a handkerchief embroidered with her initials. Old customs die hard in this family.

“I acted like a total git tonight. I had the chance to apologize to a couple of people, to prove that I’m not who they think I am, and I just… lost my fucking head instead. Why do I do that?”

“Because you’re your father’s son.”

“Don’t say that,” I hiss, and she stiffens, her lips pursed.

“Like it or not, Draco, you have inherited some of his traits, and speaking before you think is one of those.”

“I can’t believe you still go to see him.” The thing about Lucius Malfoy is that he’s been in Azkaban for over seven years, and it’s been nearly that long since I’ve seen or spoken to him. I was skeptical that being properly estranged would make a difference. I used to think that his hold on me would last for the rest of my life, but time and distance has made it fade to a dull ache I barely even notice anymore. 

But being drunk and emotional in Malfoy Manor while my mother says I remind her of him? Well… let’s just say it lets the monster crawl out from under the bed and into the light. 

“Draco, we’ve been over this. He was my husband for a long time. My relationship with him is not the same as yours. Someday you’ll have to stop resenting me for that.” 

“He’s a war criminal.”

“And what does that make me?” She’s got me backed into a corner with that one so I don’t say anything. “Exactly. Relationships we’re not a part of are often more complicated than they look from the outside. People perceive me differently than you do. You have a love for me they can’t understand because they don’t know what you and I have experienced together as mother and child. It’s the same with your father and me. I’m not asking you to see him, Draco. I would never force you to do that. I’m just asking you to allow  _ me _ to see him without letting it drive a wedge between us. He’s not my husband anymore. We could never go back to who we were together before the war, but he is still a part of me. Do you understand?”

I nod because I do. She was always the most loving of my parents (not that it’s much of a contest when Lucius Malfoy is the other half), but she softened even more after the war. I forget that sometimes. It’s nice to see it right now. It’s exactly what I needed.

“What about you? Do you understand my need to not be a part of this,” I gesture around the room, “anymore? Because sometimes it seems like you’re just waiting for me to come back. To tell you I’ve changed my mind and want to live here and carry on whatever wizarding legacy we have left.”

“That’s not it, Draco. Really it’s not.” She smiles sadly and shakes her head, cupping my cheek. “I’ll admit it was a very jarring adjustment at first, but now I understand why you needed to do it. I’m glad you found somewhere you belong because I know how desperately you needed that. My concern is… being idle doesn’t suit you, Draco. Your mind is too restless.” 

“What does that mean?” I think I’m only asking out of some dormant rebellious need. The thing about an argument with your parents is that you can’t concede right away, even if they’re absolutely bang on in their assessment. To admit it right away is to lose.

“You need something to channel that energy into. You think that not doing anything is easier than the risk of doing  _ something, _ but it’s not. Do you remember what you told me about your anxiety? The way you can be so anxious about the possibility of something, a small task you have to do that you keep putting off because all the ways it could go wrong are mounting in your head? And then you actually do the task, and it only takes five minutes? And the relief is better than the relief you thought you were getting from putting it off?” 

“Oh yes… that feeling and I are bedfellows far too often.” Truth be told, I’m immeasurably touched that she’s been listening that closely. Malfoys are a proud sort. Therapy isn’t exactly a part of our lineage.

“That’s where you are right now. You did need a reprieve from life after the war, but that reprieve is over. It’s time to do something before you wake up and find you’re thirty.” 

“Merlin, Mother…” Another thing Malfoys are known for: laying on the blanket of pressure so thick, you can’t breathe. 

“I’m sorry. That wasn’t…” She closes her eyes and takes a breath before opening them. “I shouldn’t phrase it like a threat. I know. I’m learning. Draco, it could be as simple as taking that bar and turning it into something more. Have charity events, get involved in the community in a way beyond being a place for fun. You’ve done that a little before, haven’t you? But you’re scared to put your name on something, I think. You’d rather be the rich benefactor in the shadows. Don’t do that, darling. You weren’t made to be in the shadows.”

She’s right. I’ll throw drag nights and big queer engagement parties, but the thought of being a bar on a Pride pub crawl or approaching a local organization to throw an event with me… I can’t bear it. I feel like a fraud. Just the thought of having my name and face attached to something feels like… like it’s tainted from the start. I don’t feel like I deserve it. I don’t feel like I deserve much of anything, a belief Carolyn and I have spent plenty of time on. 

The funny thing about atonement is that they never tell you that the hardest forgiveness to get is the one you need from yourself. With other people, it’s out of your control. You can apologize. You can do your best to prove that you’ve grown, but what they do with it is up to them. And they don’t owe you forgiveness. But you do owe it to yourself. Trouble is, I’ve never quite figured out how to forgive myself, and I don’t know how much time will pass before I feel like it’s been enough, like I’ve put enough distance between who I used to be and who I am now to justify forgiveness. To feel like it’s okay. Like I have permission. Maybe there isn’t any amount of time that will magically make it feel right. Maybe Carolyn is right. Maybe I just have to decide to do it and keep doing it until I wake up one day and believe it.

“Are you okay, Draco? You make me nervous when you get quiet like that. It makes me wonder what mental torture you’re putting yourself through.”

“No no, I’m just… I was thinking that you’re right.” 

“Oh! Well… mark this occasion.” We share a laugh, and then the worst or best idea I’ve ever had pops into my head.

“Do you want to come to the flat and spend the night? We could stay up late and order food and talk.” It’s after midnight, but London is still plenty alive and I’m betting she feels as wired as I do right now. Sleep is a ways off yet.

“I would love that, Draco.” She beams at me with such blinding sincerity that I can’t even find it in myself to be cynical.

  
  


***

  
  


Narcissa Malfoy is bustling about my kitchen cheerily making tea, complimenting my green and blue tile, my austere stainless steel appliances. I went for stylish and easy to clean because I am incurably lazy about cleaning, but I also couldn’t stomach the thought of hiring someone for that, no matter how rich I am. That’s one of those markers of my old life that makes me shudder. I don’t want to be a person who has servants, especially when I have a bloody wand to do these things.

This is not a reality I could have envisioned even six months ago, and it occurs to me that maybe I’m as much to blame for the distance between us as she is. Everything that was said last night, the two of us curled on the couch chatting like excited girls at a slumber party, makes me wonder how much of her not being in my Muggle life was due to me not wanting her there. It’s true that she was stubborn about this shift in my trajectory at first, but after a while, the derisive remarks subsided. She was just happy to be kept abreast of everything, to hear that I was okay. Still, I kept huffing and puffing and playing the part of the long-suffering offspring. 

I start combing through all the times she’s been to my bar or my flat, and in reflection, some of the interactions look a lot less dramatic than I fancied them at first. There were times she was trying her best to be a part of all this, and I just… couldn’t let it happen past the threshold I deemed “safe.” I think I was afraid she’d trample on what I’d built? Like I was bracing myself for biting ridicule and reacting to the possibility of it rather than waiting to see what she’d do first. I had an image of her, an old, outdated image that I was clinging to rather than adjusting to the new her and trusting that it was real. Horribly ironic that I demanded of her the very same thing I wasn’t willing to give back.

Oh well. Regret is a useless emotion, as they say. Whatever might have held us back, it isn’t there now, and as I hug her goodbye, I know we’ll be okay because we already are. It’s taken me a long time to accept this, but being okay isn’t synonymous with everything being perfect and solved. Forgive the following cliché, but it’s just so incredibly apt.

_ God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.  _

It’s so hard to parse that difference sometimes. Our brains are cunning liars. Sometimes I think the traps our own minds set are the most exhausting challenges to wade through in this life, but right now I’m experiencing a bit of clarity. I figure I better act on it before it’s gone so I take out my mobile and select a well-used contact.

“Well… this should be interesting.” 

“Pans, I know I owe you about a thousand apologies, but I’d like to take care of something else first. Can I ask for a small favor?”

“That depends. How good is your grovel these days?”

“Oh, you know I am a most excellent groveler when I want to be.”

I can practically hear the smile through the phone.

  
  


***

  
  


When I step out of the green flames and see her surprised face, I almost step right back in. Coming unannounced is a bit of a selfish maneuver, but I figured I’d be turned away if I asked first. Besides, if she throws me out, that’s fine. That’s absolutely her right.

“Draco… yours is about the last face I’d expect to see coming out of our floo.” Hermione sets her book down, and I take a quick look around the room. It’s cozy. There are blankets thrown across couches and armchairs, and everything (the floors, the walls, the furniture) is made from rustic but pretty wood. There’s a mug of tea on the table in front of her. It’s a very cabin-in-the-woods atmosphere, and it suits them. I can imagine a family thriving here, making memories whose echoes imprint in the pores of the wooden beams.

“Sorry. I completely understand if you want me to leave, but I’d like to—”

“Sit,” she interrupts, waving to the couch cushion next to her.

I sit down and take a deep breath, smiling faintly at her. She’s wearing that no-nonsense look that’s just her way, but there’s a tint of patience to her eyes. She doesn’t look like she’s about to fly into a rage so that’s good. Maybe I can do this. I  _ have _ to do this. 

“The thing about apologies is that you don’t know if you’re doing them for yourself or the person you owe them to. And I think you should figure that out first before you give an apology.”

“That’s very astute of you. I would agree,” she says, settling into the corner of the couch to get a better look at me. Instead of cowering away from that, I do the same, mirroring her pose and angling my legs toward her. 

“Harry said something that really resonated with me. He was talking about him and me, but I think it applies here too. Sometimes I wasn’t sure if apologizing to you would be imposing, forcing you to deal with me when you’d moved on. It’s weird how much easier it was to atone with strangers, doing charity work and everything. Merlin knows I’m not a people person—” 

“Understatement of the century.” I look at her, and she smiles mischievously. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”

“Quite alright. Funny even,” I say, and this time my smile is genuine. “Anyway, it was easier then. In some ways, at least. I was much more of a mess than I am now, but… I don’t know. I had this separation from everyone I’d wronged, and it made it easier. This… this is hard.”

She gives the slightest nod in response to my shy glance, and so I just plunge headfirst.

“I don’t know what happened last night—no, that’s not true. I  _ do _ know what happened. You would think that, after all these years and how much I’ve changed, I’d be able to not regress in front of you. But it’s like… the mere  _ threat _ of my former self, the idea of it in my head just looming there like a Boggart about to jump out of a closet… It's like I unleashed it because it was too scary to deal with the possibility of putting myself out there. It’s easy to be a predictable arsehole and let you react to that version of me. It’s infinitely more terrifying to be vulnerable and try to hope for the best. Merlin, does this make any sort of sense or am I just doing a regurgitating ramble of my therapy sessions?”

“It makes sense to me, and I appreciate you coming here to tell me,” she generously responds. 

“Why are you being so understanding? Why aren’t you throwing that mug of tea at my head?”

“Is that what you’d rather I do?”

“Honestly? Yes. That’s what I deserve.”

“Well… I couldn’t know that you’d ever apologize, that we’d ever be having this conversation.” She takes a deep breath and regards me a moment before continuing. “If you make the pain of the past conditional on whether or not you get the apology you’re owed, it just hurts  _ you _ because you don’t get any closure. That’s not to say that you don’t owe me many, many apologies. You absolutely do. It’s just that… if I’d let everything stay fresh like an open wound, waiting and waiting for the day you’d come by to apologize and close it up… I could have been waiting forever. It also helps that I’ve had a good night’s sleep to cool down from last night. Now it’s my turn to ask if that makes sense?”

“One hundred percent. Hermione, I—I’m sorry for literally everything. You can name them all in an itemized list if you like. We can go over them one by one. Seriously. I’ll stay here as long as it takes. You have no idea how many nights I have spent lying awake and reliving all of the unforgivable things I said and did in excruciating detail. I self-flagellate like a Jesuit with their floggers.” 

“How do you know about the Jesuits?”

“I’ve learned a lot of weird things since I joined the Muggle world. Research comforts me. We have that in common.”

“We do, don’t we?” She doesn’t say anything else for a bit, and although my heart sinks, I won’t ask if she forgives me because I know it’s not my right to ask. “Thank you, Draco. I’m really glad you came here today.”

I exhale so loudly that it startles us both, and we lapse into uneasy laughter. 

“Apparently, I was literally holding my breath for your reaction.”

“Sort of nice to know I was keeping you on your toes there,” she says with a hint of a smile.

“You’ve always been good at that.”

“You know, the idea behind the Jesuit penance is that you’ve paid the price for your sins when it’s over. You’re not meant to torture yourself for the rest of your life.”

“I know. I’m working on that. I was serious about that itemized list, you know. You name it, I will individually address it.”

“I don’t think that would be a good thing for either of us, Draco. But thank you for the offer.”

I nod and bite my lip, looking to her and the floor and back again.

“Something else on your mind?” she asks.

“What you said last night… about why Harry left?”

“Oh.” She picks up her mug and takes a sip. “I think you’d better ask him about that.”

“Fair enough. You know… you were right about what you said. I don’t know everything about what’s gone on in the last few years, but I do know what it’s like to have gone through hell and come out the other side only to have people demanding you rush into adulthood with a solid ten-year plan.”

“I just want him to be happy.” 

“Sometimes our own ideas of happiness aren’t universal, and preaching them as such pulls people apart. I should know. My family wrote the book on that.”

“The thing is, I’ve known him nearly my whole life, Draco. He’s such a wonderful person with so much to offer. I’m not saying he has to accomplish that the way I might, but I think he truly needs it. I think he’s atrophying without it. Harry is impulsive, sure, but he’s more himself when he’s helping people.”

“God, this had been an insane week. Feels like a whole year has passed in just a few days.” I sweep a hand through my hair, not sure how to process all the parallels in my life and Harry’s. Even though I should probably see Pans next, I have a feeling I’m going to rush to him instead. “I think you’re right, Hermione. About him and me. Which is… weirdly almost the same.”

“You’ve noticed that too, have you?” She flashes me a wicked grin, and I hate how everyone in my life is seeing right through me these days. 

A door opens in another room, and a few seconds later, I’m face to face with Ron Weasley. It’s just as well. I should keep going on this Draco Malfoy Apology Tour. 

“Come to grovel, have you? Good for you. Wise choice,” he says with a wink. People really love using that word today, don’t they? 

“You’re chipper. Quite the change from last night,” I reply. 

“Draco, I have five brothers. You learn the ‘get it all out, punch each other in the nose and then go back to normal’ technique pretty quickly.” He sits down in the chair opposite us and gives a carefree shrug. 

“Are you going to punch me in the nose?” 

“Don’t know. ‘Mione? Does he need a punch?” 

“No, I think the one I gave him years ago is still smarting.” 

“She’s not wrong,” I say.

“Are you staying for dinner?” Ron asks, and I truly think I slipped into a parallel universe when I hit Harry with that door.

“I—really? Is that an option?”

“Why not?” Ron shrugs. “You haven’t really made up until you’ve had a meal, yeah? Besides, if you act a right proper git, I can just decide to give you that punch after all.”

I decide to take that risk. 

  
  


***

  
  


“Guess who I just had a very pleasant, violence free dinner with?” Over dinner, Hermione, Ron and I delved into everything a bit deeper, and while I don’t think we’ll be thick as thieves anytime soon, the air is cleared in a more thorough way than I ever could have hoped for. 

“You honestly thought she wouldn’t call me immediately? I had to let her go just so I could answer you.” Harry’s rich baritone, his light, bouncy laughter is a balm to my cowardice, erasing the escalating trepidation I’d felt dialing his number. I sat on my bed staring at my mobile for a good thirty minutes before I pressed that button, its green hue mocking me, making it impossible to think about anything other than the man I wanted to talk to more than anyone.

“Does that mean you’re willing to forgive the drunken loutish behavior of a very, very sorry man and spend some time with him before tomorrow’s big day?” I don’t mention that the fact that the wedding is tomorrow means he’ll be off soon, sailing through the skies or carried across the picturesque scenery of the European countryside by a train car, headed to whatever destination his restless legs desire. I can’t think about that right now. There will be plenty of time to break down about it when he’s gone.

“Oooohhh, I think I can spare a few hours for my favorite drunken lout.” 

I don’t have to see him to know the edges of his lovely lips are curving upward in a smile. 

  
  


***

Harry’s in my lap, and we’re kissing and groping like two fumbling teenagers necking for the first time, all fevered hands that don’t have direction or purpose, just a teeming need that won’t be denied. It’s like many of the moments over the last week: too domestic, the glow and murmur of the telly in the background, the London rain tapping on the windows like a gentle hello. 

He’s so docile like this, a sweet little kitten who just wants to be loved, to be stroked into peace, and I guess I’m like that too. Harry and I both want very much for people to love us, to take care of us and tell us we’ll be okay, but he’s better at asking for that than I am. He’s reconciled with that need. He’s comfortable with it, but me? I’m frozen with fear. I don’t want to admit my needs because it invites people to hurt me, to disappoint me and leave me even emptier than I was before I dared to ask for their affection and companionship. Or worse, I’ll disappoint them and prove that I’ve been the callous, worthless person incapable of genuine love that I’ve feared all along. Other people probably don’t have existential crises like this when they’re having sex, do they? What must it be like to be “normal” and unperturbed all the time? To not be consumed by the mire of your racing thoughts every waking moment?

“Can I ride you?” he whispers in my ear, nibbling on the lobe. 

I nod so vigorously, I worry my head might snap clean off my neck. When he sinks all the way down, so tight and hot around my cock, both of us still in our shirts (it seems we’re always in a half-clothed rush, can’t be bothered to spare the thirty seconds it would take to get naked), his fingers curling in the fabric of mine, little  _ ah-ah _ s and irresistible broken whines tumbling out of his mouth, I think I could die like this without regret, all my senses filled with Harry. 

“Sorry, I’m not great at the up and down,” he says with a chuckle, and my jaw drops because I can’t fathom why he’d think he has anything to apologize for in this perfect moment. 

“I don’t care,” I gasp, thrusting up into him and sealing our mouths to prove my point. He can grind on me until he comes, use my cock to make him feel good, and I will feel such serenity just from knowing I’m of  _ use _ to him. I’ve never served a greater purpose than that in my whole strange, cursed twenty-five years on this Earth. 

“I like you so much.” He covers my neck with kisses, his hands sliding up my shirt and caressing my back. God, his hands feel so good on my skin. It’s like he’s soothing a burn I didn’t know was simmering underneath my skin, dousing me with cool water until I can breathe easy again. 

“You say that now, when my cock’s up your arse.” 

“Draco…” He clasps my chin in his hand and looks at me entirely too closely, the unbearable shiver of having been thoroughly  _ seen _ making its way through me until I can’t do anything other than sit back and let it happen. “I mean it. I  _ do.” _

I bury my head in his neck because I can’t look at him anymore. It feels like we’re a couple. I’m dangerously close to believing the illusion, and despite this knowledge, I fuck into him harder, picking him up and slamming him back down, telling him how beautiful he is, how well he takes it, how good he feels, how much I like him, how glad I am that he came back, how I don’t want him to ever leave. I’m sober, but I’m rambling like I’m drunk, drunk on him. I’m saying everything I’ve been careful not to say because it doesn’t matter as much anymore. It’s now or never. He  _ is _ leaving, and I might as well lay all the cards out before he does. I can’t lose anymore than I already have.

When he comes, he says my name over and over again, trembling and clinging to me like he never wants to let go, and it’s not even a question anymore. I’ve bought this fantasy hook, link and sinker. Any aftermath I hoped to dodge like the shrapnel spraying a battlefield… it’s too late for that. I will be utterly, completely devastated when he leaves, and that’s just something I’m going to have to live with.

I spill inside him in long spurts that seem like they won’t end, like my body is clutching onto this orgasm because it knows it’s the final one, a moment that must be savored and made into something eternal.

Eventually, sweaty and spent, we separate, but he stays near, his head pressed against my shoulder, his fingertips skimming my pale, naked thigh. 

I know so many queer people who have intense weekend trysts. Maybe they pick someone up in a bar, and when they take them home, the sexual connection is too good to let go of right away. Or maybe someone is visiting the city for a week, and they want a partner for that time. So they hunker down in an apartment, spending a few days talking and fucking and eating takeaway, and then it’s over. They part amicably, and usually they never see each other again. 

I’m not saying straight people never do this. I’m sure some do, but in queer culture, it has a much more longstanding history, a deeply-rooted tradition that comforts me. There’s something very open and vulnerable about this, about not measuring every encounter’s value by its potential to become a “forever” relationship. It’s beautiful to think that connection is still just as meaningful even if it’s brief. That longevity isn’t the sum total of worth, that whether or not something leads to marriage isn’t the way to determine if it “failed.” It’s an attitude that breaks barriers and doesn’t put relationships into stringently defined boxes.

But with Harry, I feel greedier than I ever have. A week isn’t nearly enough, and while  _ forever _ is a daunting concept too big and too uncertain to entertain, I do know that I want more than this week. 

“What made you leave England? Hermione said I should probably ask you myself.” I stroke his hair and watch the rise and fall of his shoulders as he sighs.

“Thank Merlin for Dittany, right? It’s like I can still feel them there though.” Harry raises one hand, takes a forefinger, and traces a line down his wrist, like there’s something there that I can’t see but he can. “I don’t know… maybe it’s like… an event that leaves a mark on your skin, one that sinks into your pores, into the memory of your body… it becomes a part of you even if you get rid of the evidence. I think our bodies remember everything that happens. Does that sound stupid?”

He twists enough to look at me, and I shake my head.

“Not at all. It’s an idea that crops up all over the place, especially in Eastern cultures. Chinese medicine, yoga, Buddhism. Lots of people believe in trauma being stored in the body, in your muscles.” I don’t press him to clarify because he deserves the space to decide if he wants to tell me. He’s been so patient this week, hasn’t demanded anything of me this whole time, and I’m not about to start violating that unspoken contract.

He sits up and rubs his wrist, looking at it and then me, his eyes somber when he says, “After the war, I started cutting myself, and I did it a little too deep once. Deep enough that people thought I was trying to kill myself.”

“What?!” As soon as I say it, the word high-pitched and hysterical, I regret it, wishing I could remain composed for his benefit and calmly let him explain, but Merlin… this is quite the wallop of information.

“It was years ago. I’m fine now, really. And it wasn’t like I did it and then immediately skipped town. I stayed and saw Carolyn until we both felt okay about me leaving. Like I told you, I kept seeing her long after I left too. It was just… we both agreed that sort of living at the scene of the crime wasn’t working for me. So once I was strong enough, and she was satisfied that I wasn’t a danger to myself, I took off. Hermione was a wreck. She didn’t really take well to me not wanting to keep in contact much, but I couldn’t deal with calling her and hearing that whole—it was like I could hear in her voice how terrified she was that I’d do it again and this time I’d bleed out. Like being watched all the time, just walking on eggshells with everyone. I needed a break, and there was no way I could explain to people that I didn’t want to die. I  _ never _ really wanted to die, not even when I was taking those razor blades to my wrists. It was about—”

“Wanting everything to stop being so loud for a while.” 

“Yes.” He looks up at me with a rueful smile, and I return it. I think we’re both probably happy we understand each other but sad about the reason for that. I don’t tell him about all the times I wanted to slash at the Dark Mark with a knife, but I’m sure he wouldn’t be surprised. “Anyway, I haven’t self harmed in… over five years now? I don’t talk about it much because it makes people look at you differently, like you’re a ticking time bomb. I hate that so much, you know? It’s like they’re indirectly denying your recovery. For me, it’s something I overcame years ago. For them, it’s something they’re learning about for the first time so they get this shocked look like they think I’m about to do it in front of them or something.”

“Sorry if I seemed like I was about to do that. I trust that you know yourself far better than anyone else. I was just shocked.” 

“I understand. It’s a lot.”

“The adrenaline junkie things make even more sense now.”

“Yeah, it’s a great way to drown out the noise, honestly. Would have explained that earlier, but I couldn’t figure out a way to do that without opening this whole can of Flobberworms.”

“I completely understand. Can I hug you now?” I don’t know that I’ve ever wanted to comfort someone more in my life. I want to give him the whole goddamn world. He deserves it, and I hate that he was in that much pain after the war. He sacrificed so much for all of us, even those of us who hadn't earned it. 

“Of course. Anytime.” He smiles, and I pull him closer, hugging him for what I’m sure is long past the acceptable duration, but he lets me do it.

“This is usually when I’d say, ‘let’s have a drink,’ but I’ve given it up so… cigarette?” I’ll shed one bad habit at a time.

He nods, and we take the stairs leading to my building’s roof, sitting on the edge with our feet dangling into the chaotic city below, sharing a cigarette even though there’s no reason to. We could each have our own, but I like our lips leaving imprints on the same burning paper. 

“Be honest, did part of you like that this,” I gesture between us, “gave you an excuse to avoid seeing your friends?” I’m partly joking, but there’s also a rope of insecurity tightening around my heart.

“Only as a side benefit!” he assures me with a kiss on my cheek. “All the time we’ve spent together has been amazing, drama and all. I  _ wanted _ to be here with you. It wasn’t just a convenience.”

I’m grateful that the sun has set, obscuring my fierce blush. 

“I know. I’m magnificent.” I wink and take a slow drag on the cigarette.

“And humble too,” he laughs.

“How was it when you saw them though?”

“Like most things I get anxious about: way better and less disastrous than I’d built up in my head,” he says, accepting the cigarette from my hand and taking a puff. “The thing about Ron and Hermione and me is that we’ve known each other for so long, it’s like… you just pick up where you left off. They’re family, and you can be yourself with family.  _ True _ family, that is. I’ll definitely be coming to see them in person a lot more now. I missed that. It’s not the same when it’s just a voice on the other end of the mobile.” 

“Hermione thinks you need to get back to helping people.” I pat myself on the back for not jumping at the chance to ask him how frequently  _ “a lot more now” _ means and how soon he’ll return to England.

“She treated you to that speech too, did she?” He laughs, a burst of smoke leaving his mouth.

“Maybe she’s right.” 

He looks at me like I’ve just suggested we spend the weekend in a Turkish prison for fun.

“You too now? I thought I could at least count on you not to lecture me.” 

“I’m not going to lecture you. You can do whatever you want, but tell me you don’t miss helping people. Tell me I’m wrong.” I might be off, but the thing about all of Harry’s exploits is they always struck me as incongruous with who he is at the core. For weekends blowing off steam? Sure. But the sum total of his life? No. It’s not enough. My mother was right about me being restless, and I think Hermione’s right about him too. We’re two sides of the same dysfunctional, headstrong coin, he and I. 

“And what is it you think I should be doing?” 

“I don’t know. Start small. Volunteer. Take a class.” 

“Oh Merlin, what classes? Like, adult education with the octogenarians taking basket weaving?” 

“Not what I meant, and you know it. You’re charming. You’ve always been. You literally charmed the pants off me after seven years with little effort. You could do anything.” 

“Can’t charm someone who’s already smitten.” He flashes a toothy grin, a libidinous sparkle in his eyes. 

“I’m sure you’d love to think that,” I protest with a roll of my eyes. 

“Draco…” He covers my hand with his own, and that’s all he needs to say. All this time and all this baggage, and he distills it down with one eloquent utterance of my name. He knows he’s right, and he knows my protest is just for show. It’s a game we play that excites us both, a chase that isn’t really a chase because we’ve both already been caught. 

“I was having such a shit day when you came in,” I say, taking the cigarette back. “Hungover, late, feeling a right mess and looking like it too.” 

“I noticed.” 

“Hey! You did not. You looked at me like I was a very tantalizing steak.” 

“You were. You’re still a knockout when you’re hungover and messy. You’re just that gorgeous.” 

“Blow smoke up someone else’s arse, Potter.” 

“What was that? I think I interrupted you. You were about to confess your undying love for me? How I came into the shop and swept your whiskey-soaked puffy-eyed self off your feet? Reminding you of how you’d been carrying a torch for me your whole life?” 

We smirk at one another, our eyes locked and heavy with the truth. I don’t have to say anything, and that’s the remarkable thing with us, really. We never really have to. We  _ like _ to, but we don’t  _ have _ to. I kiss him until I’m sure he knows just how very much the answer is yes.

“I’m not saying you have to quit skydiving and shagging. Just save an orphan or two in between. Or something like that.”

“And what about you? What’s the newly sober bloke who owns a bar going to do with his life?”

“I don’t know just yet… but I’m working on it.”

I look out at the vast concrete metropolis I live in, and I love it for being big enough to give me room to change.

  
  


***

  
  


“What if I’m making a terrible mistake?! You’ve said it yourself more bloody times than I can count: marriage is an archaic institution. Why didn’t you try to stop me from giving in?!” Pansy points an accusatory finger at me before chugging directly from a bottle of champagne. She makes a delightfully mismatched picture, all frazzled nerves and wide eyes in her immaculate black wedding dress (she’s far too daring and original to go with bland tradition) and perfectly coiffed hair.

“Me? Try to tell  _ you _ what to do? When has that ever worked? For me or anyone else, for that matter?” I grab the bottle from her before she accidentally spills it and does irreparable damage to her dress. We don’t need to fan the flames of panic.

“Fair point, but when has the resistance of anyone stopped you from shouting your opinion? You’re not exactly known for tact, Draco.”

“Sit down, darling.” I gently but firmly grip her shoulders and steer her toward a chair. “Look, you love Blaise more than anything in this insane world, and he would literally take a bullet for you. That’s why you’re doing this. Because it’s important to  _ you. _ It doesn’t matter what marriage means to anyone else. All that matters is how you feel about each other and how you want to express those feelings. You’ll drive yourself mad if you listen to what other people say you should do. No one standing outside of a relationship can understand what’s going on within it. What marriage means for you and Blaise is between you and Blaise. Okay?” 

“How can you be so wise and such a fuckup at the same time?” She smiles and ruffles my hair, and I know that the wedding jitters have been successfully thwarted. I also know that I owe my mother a heartfelt thank you. 

“I’ll let that slide because it’s your special day, and I also feel like I could have prevented you getting cold feet if I hadn’t disappeared a lot this week. Sorry about that.”

“You conceited arsehole.” She shakes her head as she opens a compact and reapplies her blood-red lipstick. “Bold of you to assume you have that much power. You might be my oldest friend, but you’re not my  _ only _ friend. Between my mother’s fussing and trying to avert last minute disasters in the wedding planning, I haven’t had a moment’s peace. Trust me when I say I wasn’t alone for a second, and I neither had time to miss you nor time to have a mini heart attack about all this. My freak out today was a delayed one. It was going to catch up with me sooner or later.”

I slump down in the chair she vacated, my head dizzy with an overwhelming swirl of unwelcome thoughts.

“Darling? Have we traded panicking places?” Pansy asks me.

“I just—this is a big change. I don’t know if it really hit me until now. You’re about to get married, and we’ve been fighting off and on for a while now. Maybe I was apologizing for abandoning you this week because I’m scared that’s what we’re headed for permanently. I love you, Pans. I want you to always be in my life.” I’m crying before I even realize it’s happening, and her features soften as she puts her arms around me. 

“Draco, I’d never abandon you. Merlin, have you forgotten everything we’ve been through? Our hilarious foray into dating when you hadn’t come out yet? The way we were both pariahs after the war? I didn’t leave you then, and you didn’t leave me. I’m not about to do it now. Doesn’t matter what you do. I only scold you for fucking up because I care and because we’ve always sniped at each other. It’s just our way. Things are changing, and they’ll keep changing, but how I feel about you is not one of those things.”

“Thank you, Pans. I love you so fucking much.”

“Me too, darling. Me too. Now stop getting tears on my dress. I will  _ not _ be a messy bride when I walk down that aisle.” She pats my shoulder, and we both laugh.

“Don’t worry. You look perfect.”

She does.

  
  


***

  
  


I’m sitting at a table watching a drunk Blaise babbling at Harry in that particular kind of way drunk people do when they’ve decided they simply  _ have _ to tell you how much they adore you.  _ “No no, I’m serious. It’s not because I’m drunk,”  _ they’ll say even though that is precisely why. Still, it’s not always a lie. Sometimes they’re just letting the feelings gush out in a sincere way they can only manage when they’re intoxicated. It can be a pure, sweet thing in that way. Or it can be a darker thing in the wrong hands, the monster of alcohol winding around your tongue and squeezing the venom out until you’ve let everyone see the demons that lurk in the hidden, shameful recesses of your mind. 

It’s so vastly different from person to person, circumstance to circumstance, and as one of the few sober people at this wedding reception, I've been standing back and observing like an amateur alcohol-focused anthropologist. 

On one hand, I envy the people who can indulge in consequence-free drinking, an iron-clad assurance that they’ll never accidentally slip into overindulgence. They can have a couple, ride the fluttery wave of gentle tipsiness, and be done with it. On the other hand, seeing the various people on the other end of the spectrum, bumping into tables and letting all manner of regrettable bullshit tumble out of their mouths, is making me very glad to not count myself among them.  I thought the social aspect would be hard, suffering through pointless small talk without the helpful lubricant of alcohol, but it hasn’t been that bad. Everyone’s in good spirits for the occasion, which makes it easier. I’m taking it one step, one line of conversation at a time.

Perhaps this is a turning point, or perhaps it’ll be like that Dry January when I drank enough on February 1 to make up for the whole sober month. Maybe I’m finally fed up, and this was just a partying phase of my twenties that went on a little too long. I can’t know for sure. That’s sort of the crux of it all. One day at a time and all that. Tomorrow, I might be anxious about the uncertainty, but right now, under the stars with my oldest friends dancing together in their newly wedded bliss, I feel weirdly zen about it.

I watch the two of them dancing, the champagne fountain charmed to refill itself flowing behind them like a sparkling river, their eyes locked, totally enamored with one another, and I think about what Pansy said. Things are changing, but they have been for a long time and maybe that’s alright. Maybe change is how we know we’re alive. It wouldn’t have done me much good to stay the same, and I think that’s true for most people, otherwise what’s the point of living?

Besides, I think Pansy is right: with true friendship, your feelings for each other are the one constant in life’s whirlwind.

“It was a beautiful wedding, wasn’t it?” Harry sits beside me, and one of the wedding favors whizzes above our head, golden comet tails spraying across the atmosphere. There was one in the center of each table, and we released them all at the same time, lighting up the sky with speeding swishes of color. Most of them faded long ago, but apparently this one’s hanging on.

“You sound like an old auntie clutching her handkerchief. How old are you?” I joke.

“Considering you were the one bawling during the ceremony, I don’t think you have any room to talk.” He’s right. I was in complete shambles, but in my defense, two of my oldest friends were getting married. It would be an emotional occasion for anyone, okay?

“Touché.”

I light a cigarette. He asks for one. I consider playfully telling him that no one likes the person who always bums one but never has their own, but the truth is that I love him borrowing anything from me at any time. 

“I guess you’ll be off soon,” I mutter, taking a long drag and not looking at him although I can feel his eyes on me. My mother is dancing with Pansy’s father, and she waves over at us. We both wave back. She was so delighted to see Harry. It was sort of adorable; she doted on him with so much concern, you’d think he was her child too.

“Yeah… tomorrow or the day after. Depends on how lazy I’m feeling.”

“I don’t want you to leave.” It’s scary to say it. It’s not as if we both didn’t know I was thinking it, but pushing the words into the air makes it possible for him to hurt me by saying he doesn’t feel the same.

“You could come with me. Leave Ian in charge of the bar and take a long vacation. We could go anywhere you like.” As he smiles and runs a hand through my hair, I try to decide if he’s serious or if this is just one of those romantic overtures that are easy to make simply because you know they could never actually happen. All the melodrama of a grand gesture without the followthrough. There’s a reason those classic marriage plot novels—Austen, Brontë—end with the sweeping, epic promise of love. It’s easy to say these things, but it’s harder to do the day to day work of being with someone. People aren’t too keen to see the reality that comes after the hand-clasped-to-chest, running-through-the-airport scenes. Not that I’m asserting any superiority here. I’ve been much the same during my dating years, but I think that’s fine. I wasn’t ready. I had a lot of other things to reckon with. 

“I think I have to sort out some things here. Running away doesn’t seem like progress.” I can’t believe I’m turning him down, but it’s just not practical to say yes. Not yet. I’m at a crossroads with myself, and I need to deal with that first. I do think he means it. He’s never been a disingenuous person, but the thing is… he’s never been a pragmatic one either. And that’s fine. There are advantages to not being a chronic overthinker like I am, but there are cons to being the type to rush in headlong too. Ideally, you want to find a way to settle into the middle. Hopefully someday I’ll master that. 

“Maybe I’ll stay,” Harry says, and  _ that _ is possibly even more surprising than the offer to run away together. 

I watch the people on the dance floor, ties loosened, shoes unlaced and shucked off, the part of the night when everyone’s uninhibited and happy. There will be a wind down over the next hour, guests scattering off in different directions, the dance floor emptying until only a couple merry stragglers remain. I’ve seen the same pattern at my bar countless nights. Finally, I force myself to meet Harry’s stupidly beautiful eyes, and I see a seriousness there that lights the candle of hope. 

“Really?” I don’t even bother trying to tamp down the childlike excitement in the question.

“Really.” He nods vehemently. “I sort of meant this week to be a trial run. Maybe I’ll move on again eventually, but… it’s like you said. I have things to sort out here first. I miss being close to the people I love. I miss riding the tube. I miss walking around with greasy street food. I miss feeling like I had somewhere to call home, even if it was full of problems. I want to try to make that happen. You can’t really have that when you’re on the move constantly. Maybe some people can, but not me.” 

“You changed my life, Harry Potter. I don’t just mean now, although this has been maybe the craziest, most unexpected week of my life, but you… you’ve meant a lot of different things to me over the years. I don’t know if I would be who I am today if I hadn’t met you.” It’s so painfully, viscerally true, and I don’t know how to sufficiently explain it to him without sounding like a raving madman. He made me aware of my desires before I was comfortable with them. Seeing what they did to him, a child  _ my _ age, made the horrors of the world real to me in a way it hadn’t before. Having him here now made everything I’d been repressing pop to the foreground in bright detail impossible to ignore. It’s like nearly all of the earth-shattering revelations of my life trace back to him in one way or another. He’s a permanent catalyst for it all. “Does that—is that too intense of a thing to say? I—” 

Before I can launch into an incoherent apology for laying this terribly weighty confession on him, he kisses me breathless.

“That’s a good answer.” I chuckle as we separate. Like I said, there are advantages to being the impulsive type instead of being long-winded and stuck in your head. That said, I am still the latter. “What does this mean for us?” 

“Whatever you want. I’m not in any rush.” He shrugs so casually, and I envy how easy-breezy he often is about things. I know it’s probably a deceptive ease. He probably has to work at it behind the scenes, but still, I’d like him to impart some of that wisdom to me. “I just like spending time with you, knowing who you are now, and that’s sort of the thing we’re trying to do with all of it, yeah? Making new associations with the people and places we knew before. Even with ourselves. You can’t rush a thing like that.”

“Just keep doing what we’re doing and see what happens?”

“Yeah! Why not? I think one of the biggest mistakes people make is thinking too far ahead. Like sure, it’s good to plan a bit, but it’ll drive you mad too. How many times has Carolyn told you to ‘stay in the present moment?’” He gives me a cheeky smile.

“Enough to make me want to throw that antique clock of hers against the wall.”

“It’s the worst when she’s right, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely.”

He leans his head on my shoulder, and I put my arm around him. It’s one of those perfect spring nights, warm air with the loveliest breeze.

“Thank God for that advice though, because I know fuck all about what I’m going to do next.” I close my eyes and lean my cheek against the top of his head. “I feel like I’m years behind. I wish I’d been better to you sooner. I wish I’d done more to help other people. I wish I’d done so many fucking things. I wasted a lot of time.” 

“Don’t think of it like that.”

“Hard not to.” 

“It’s not very productive though. It’s literally the opposite of staying in the present.” 

“I know, I know. I just—” 

He sits up and gently clamps a hand over my mouth.

“Draco, sometimes taking care of yourself  _ is _ making a difference. You can’t tackle much of anything when you’re broken. Do you have any idea how guilty I felt leaving everyone while the rebuilding was happening? I had to tell myself every day that I wasn’t being a selfish shit, that my life and my time didn’t belong to everyone else. I get that it’s different for you because you have things to make up for, but maybe stop whining and sitting in the self-pity pool and just do something about it, bit by bit?”

“Is it wrong that I get a little turned on by you calling me out like that?”

“If it’s wrong, then I don’t want to be bloody right. Shall we?” He stands up and offers me his hand. I take it, and we dance until we’re the last merry stragglers out there, smiling like fools under the stars. 

  
  


_ Epilogue _

  
  


“I’m never doing anything for anyone ever again,” I groan as I faceplant into a booth in the bar.

How does a sober person keep owning a bar, you ask? By flooding the menu with all sorts of fancy non-alcoholic creations. I figured since it’s my bloody place, I could do whatever the hell I wanted, so I did just that. Turns out, there’s actually a void in that market that needed to be filled? There are loads of people in my age bracket and older who want to hang out with their friends in bars they love but don’t want plain seltzer with a twist of lime as their only drink option. By being a bar that’s sober-person friendly and makes an effort to accommodate them, we’ve garnered a whole new clientele. 

“You say that every time, and somehow,  _ someone _ keeps planning events, each one bigger than the last.” Shay laughs and ruffles my hair as she sits down a few inches from my head, her partner Violet leaning against her shoulder. 

“Would this be a bad time to remind you that Pride is only two months away?” Ian calls from somewhere in the back. That infuriatingly motivated angel has launched into a furious bout of cleaning instead of collapsing like the rest of us. I will never understand where he gets the energy, but I am eternally indebted to him for choosing to expend a portion of that on this bar and my half-baked dreams. 

“You’re insane! Sit down for five minutes. You’re making me anxious,” I shout back.

“Well, messes make me anxious. One man’s anxiety is another man’s… I have no idea where I was going with that. Anyway, I’ll feel better if I make a dent in this before tomorrow.” 

“Come sit! Draco’s right. Let it be for once. We made  £ 5 ,000 for the Terrence Higgins Trust. We’ve come a long way since our first half-arsed Bottoms for Peace or whatever the hell it was we tried to throw last year. Come celebrate with us! And by celebrate, I mean collapse right next to me because I truly don’t think my legs work anymore,” Shay says with a fatigued sigh.

“Bottoms for Peace?! It was Homos for the Homeless. Why is your memory so bad?” Violet laughs, and then it turns into a squeal when Shay pinches her side.

We  _ have _ come a long way. We get better at this every time, but now that we’re getting bigger crowds, it’s apparent we’re going to need a few more people on board than the four of us and the bartenders on staff. Still, I’m proud of this place and what we’ve done. I match every donation raised by our events because it wouldn’t make sense for me to ask others to care about something without donating my own money too. In my opinion, it’s the best use of the Malfoy fortune.

I’ve been building relationships with other organizations around the city, and I’m better at it than I thought I would be. Somewhere along the way, I forgot that I  _ do _ know how to deal with people and that it feels good. I like expanding the circle, making our community bigger and closer together with each event.

I volunteer whenever I can, and I don’t know why I ever bought into that anxiety about doing something because doing nothing felt so much worse. All it took was one shift at a homeless shelter for queer youth for me to remember that, in the early days after the war, the only time I ever felt peace and hope for the future was when I was keeping my hands busy with endless hours of community service. Nothing makes you stop thinking about the war waging inside your head like turning your energy toward something wholly outside of yourself. 

Sometimes I get wrapped up in regret for the listless years in between now and then, but then I think maybe if I’d kept at it back then, I would have just used it as an excuse not to deal with myself. It’s weird. Distractions are good. They’re an approved anxiety coping strategy, but it can swing the other way too. We all know the workaholics who are too afraid to slow down because then they’ll be faced with only themselves and all the thoughts they’ve been repressing with a relentless momentum of activity. 

I might be off base with that. I’m sure there are more than a few people who would roll their eyes at the assertion, but I don’t know… my mother was right. I don’t do well with being idle for long because my mind is always buzzing. I think things happened right when they were supposed to. Right when I was ready for them to happen. When I could handle facing myself without a grimace.

“When did Harry slink off?” Ian says as he finally flops down on the opposite side of the booth, setting glasses of water in front of everyone. He’s such a dad, and we are all his hapless, overgrown children. 

“About an hour ago. He would have stayed to help, but he has to get up early tomorrow.” Harry is far more generous with his time than I deserve. It’s not like he doesn’t have his own time-consuming pursuits, but he still manages to find a way to help me. He goes above and beyond, but I suppose that’s always been a cornerstone of who he is.

“No doubt getting everything ready for an anniversary surprise,” Shay says with a waggle of her eyebrows.

“Oh, shut it. It’s not an anniversary. Not really.” Tomorrow is a year since Pansy’s wedding. A year since Harry decided to stay in England. Shay and Violet have been adamant that Harry, sentimental sod that he is, will do something for this day, that even though it’s not exactly when we began, it is a significant beginning of sorts.

“Sure, whatever you say. Just text us pictures, okay? I live for that sappy shit,” Violet says with a wink.

They drive me home, which is good because I’m far too exhausted to trudge to the tube, and if I Apparated right now, I’d probably splinch myself. When I get home, it’s dark and quiet. Fanny Price—look, just because I denigrated the marriage plot novels doesn’t mean I don’t still love them—greets me with a meow that sounds like a question as she winds her fluffy white body around my legs. We never meant to have a cat, but she sort of showed up on the street one day and demanded a home. I respect that kind of willful entitlement, so I couldn’t help but accommodate her.

I pick her up, and she immediately begins to purr and nuzzle against my chest. I kick off my shoes but don’t bother to undress as I set Fanny at the foot of the bed and climb in under the covers, folding my arms around a sleeping Harry. He makes a soft moan and settles into my embrace, but he doesn’t wake up.

  
  


***

  
  


I wake up to the smell of bacon, eggs, and pancakes. A package tied together with bright green ribbon is sitting on the nightstand. I immediately fire off a text to the group chain (Shay, Violet, Ian) that simply says “you were right.” Barely five seconds pass before there’s a ding, and a triumphant “IM ALWAYS RIGHT WHEN WILL U LEARN” from Shay.

I sit upright, smiling at the sizzles and pops coming from the other end of the loft, the hint of messy, soft black hair I see peeking around the partition that blocks off part of the kitchen. I should probably wait for him, but I pull one end of the ribbon and lift the box lid.

Inside is a small wooden door about the size of a paperback book.

“Breakfast in bed,” Harry says with a wide grin as he holds out a plate brimming with food, a cup of coffee in his other hand.    


With a raised eyebrow, I hold up the door.

“Well… here’s the thing. Since neither of us are too keen on labels, I think any number of days could count as our anniversary, yeah? So I’m sort of rolling them all into one. This represents one of those days.” He keeps grinning like a kid who can’t bear to keep a secret any longer, and realization hits me.

“I whacked you in the head with a door.” I laugh and set the door down on the nightstand, taking the food and coffee from his outstretched hands. “You’re something else, Harry Potter. I might have something for you too.”

I set the coffee down next to the door, plate balanced in my lap as I open the nightstand drawer, and take out a soft, rectangular package.

“But how…” he trails off as I place it in his hands.

“You’re not that great at surprises, Harry. You walk around with a conspiratorial grin weeks beforehand. You can’t wait to spill the beans. You know how people who try to stifle their laughter end up guffawing like a bloody seal? That’s you when you’re planning something.”

“Sorry… I just can’t help it. Maybe it’s because I didn’t get surprises growing up? Not good ones, anyway. I like giving them to people as much as I can.”

I can’t tell you how much it breaks my heart when he says things like that. It takes all the restraint I possess not to find the Dursleys and hex them into eternal misery.

“You have nothing to apologize for. I love how excited you get.” I kiss his forehead and smile at him until that melancholy, far away look fades, the excitement he was wearing a minute ago returning. 

He carefully strips the wrapping paper away, a habit I’ve seen before, and there’s something about that which always tugs at my heartstrings too. It’s like he’s savoring it, like he figures he doesn’t know when he’ll get it again so he better make the moment last. I threw him a big birthday party at the bar last year, and I’m going to keep giving him lavish, loving birthdays until he no longer looks like he’s scared someone will yank all of this away.

“Merlin, it’s beautiful.” He drapes the blazer over his lap, unfolding it so he can look at it properly. It’s a deep purple (chosen because it brings out his eyes, but it’s not so flashy that it’ll make him uncomfortable) with a slightly darker trim around the cuffs and the lapels. I like giving him things he would never buy for himself, things he’d feel too sheepish to get. I want him to know he deserves everything. We both struggle with feeling undeserving in different ways, and I try to do everything I can to chip away at that.

“I figure you’ll be up to your elbows in meetings soon so might as well have something special and pretty to put on. It can make all the difference when you’re nervous.” 

Harry’s starting a new center that’s sort of like the wizarding equivalent of veteran care. Neither of us are strangers to how half-arsed the wizarding approach to healing trauma can be, how they forget to take cues from the Muggle world and treat the root of the problem rather than just the symptoms. It’s changed since the war, but there’s still a lot of work to be done, and he wanted to apply his own experience toward finding solutions. Right now, their primary focus is helping those still suffering from war-related PTSD, but they have a five-year plan in place to expand services toward all wizards seeking mental health care who find the wizarding world’s resources fall short of what they need. Unsurprisingly, Hermione has been a great help with this. She knows how to harness Harry’s enthusiastic ideas and turn them into step-by-step plans. 

“Absolutely. Sometimes I still feel like a kid trapped in an adult’s body. Think I could feel like an  _ actual _ adult in this.” We both laugh as he kisses me, and then he sidles in next to me in bed, picking bacon off my plate as he tells me all about the day he has planned for us. I’m not really listening to the details though, because I’m too captivated by his face, the light dancing across his excited eyes, the way he sweeps his hands around as he talks. I am one of those grinning fools who can’t stop smiling because they’re so fucking in love, it hurts.

Since I complained about the marriage plot books never showing you the reality, I think it’s my duty to tell you a bit of ours. Sometimes the past rears its head in a particularly vicious argument. Sometimes we weaponize long-healed wounds against each other just to be nasty, but we’re always quick to apologize because it makes us feel rotten that we ever stooped to that level. 

Like all repeated mistakes, that’s how it goes. Sometimes knowing it’s going to feel terrible later is a truth you can’t quite punch through the fog of passion to see. The ragey heat clouds your head, and you make a mistake. You say things you regret. The key, like Carolyn has beaten into my head, is to process and move on. If you get stuck in the self-censure loop, you won’t ever get out. Yes, it would be great if we could stop the venomous words  _ before _ they tumble out rather than unleashing them only to apologize later. But that’s the thing about being human. Mistakes are inevitable. You can’t always stop them before they start, and that’s fine. It’s what you do  _ next _ that shows what kind of person you really are. It’s a choice you make everyday, and when you’re a couple, it’s a choice you make together too. 

The thing about making that choice together is that it makes the bad moments not seem so huge. You have to remind yourself that those moments don’t define you. What defines you is the way you keep moving forward together, getting better and seeing each other in more glorious, vivid detail. What’s one stupid, pointless argument in a month otherwise filled with sweet moments like this one I’m having in bed with Harry right now? Nothing. A speck on the vast stretch of timeline that is our lives together. I used to think about those unsightly specks of life so often that I’d forget all the moments of joy in between. The brightness of the gleeful memories faded to leave only the bad ones. 

I don’t do that now. Not with him. And while there are many people and events that taught me that along the way (Carolyn, my mother, Shay, Ian), I like to think I owe it to him most of all.

“I love you so fucking much, Harry Potter.”

He stops mid-sentence and leans over to kiss me.

“I love you too, Draco Malfoy.”

We nibble on pancakes and bacon in bed, the sun streaming in through the curtains, striping the bedspread in fuzzy yellow. While I know I’ll enjoy every single nugget of happiness he has planned for us today, I know I could just stay here too, curled against him and wanting nothing more for the rest of my days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this fic! It was a bit of a personal/raw one for me to write, but then again, that's sort of my MO as an author haha. Please let me know what you enjoyed if you liked this fic. <3
> 
> Another thing I want to mention is that, as a person who is estranged from one of their abusive parents and who has had a lot of therapy and distance from their childhood trauma, I was really interested in showing how Draco could still backslide a bit even after healing. Because progress is never a straight line, and things creep up when triggering events occur, or when you’re going through an unrelated rough patch, etc. This fic isn’t an immediate post-war fic since it takes place 7 years down the line, and so I wanted to touch on things without hitting all the like... bullet points of post-war resolution? Because it’s different when you’re that far out. The separation and time makes things a different type of raw and challenging than it is when you’re first getting distance. There are dull aches that ebb and flow instead of sharp daily pains. You don’t think about your parent all the time because those years of distance do make a difference. I mention that because it's not really an angle I see much on the Lucius problem, and I think sometimes there's a pressure to portray it a certain way. But this is what's true to life for me. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, here it goes, the promised expansion on the alcohol side of the fic. 
> 
> A big issue for me is the way alcohol use is typically only discussed in extremes: those who have no problem at all and those who have so much of a problem that they’re familiar with rock bottom. I quit drinking in May of 2018, and since then, I’ve talked to so many people whose experience echoes mine. We never had “enough” of a problem for people in our lives to be concerned, but we were concerned. Maybe we didn’t have full-on blackouts, but we did have exacerbated anxiety and depression that lasted days after drinking. We did feel shame and regret and yet most people in our lives were just puzzled when we expressed those feelings. “But you were fine! You didn’t do anything weird last night! You had fun!” When you think it’s time to draw the line but all the literature and resources on addiction skew toward certain types of experiences that don’t line up with yours... it becomes hard to know what to do and when to do it. Feels like the whole world is giving you mixed messages.
> 
> Before I quit, I messaged an author I like who has been very public about their sobriety. I expressed all this confusion about the definitions of alcoholism, about how I wasn’t sure what to do when I can answer “no” to all the questionnaires, when I don’t feel at all at home in something like AA, but yet I still feel fucked up about my alcohol usage. She said something to me that I will never forget, something so simple yet so perfect: “forget all that shit and just ask yourself: would my life be better without alcohol? And if the answer is yes, then that’s the only question you need to ask yourself.” 
> 
> I tried to write an expanded version of that sentiment in the scene with Draco and his therapist (which, as always, is influenced by my own therapy experiences too). I know this fic wasn’t solely about the dangers of alcohol as a socially/culturally approved toxic coping mechanism, as the Drarry romance is in the forefront too, but I do hope it resonated with some people. There is so much more to alcohol abuse than the extremes that are obvious to outside observers. There is vast variety along the spectrum of drinking problems, and I think we need more narratives that cover the parts of that spectrum that are talked about less. Any film or book dealing with addiction that comes to mind is all about a certain type of rep, and I think that’s a shame. The real life stories/struggles of people who have a problem with alcohol are all over the map. 
> 
> Anyway! Hope that this is uh... remotely interesting to at least a few people and that it also lets you know this aspect of the fic is coming from a personal place. <3


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